One of the many post-Pandemic rally videos, this one posted by a foreign artefact hunter ("Leigh" aka "Bondi Treasure Hunter") energetically emptying part of the archaeological record at an undisclosed place in Norfolk into his pockets:
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Posted on You Tube by Bondi Treasure Hunter
321K subscribers, 'two months ago'
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Comments make it clear that among the 10k viewers so far are a lot that approve of this form of private exploitation of the resource and also the damage being done: Kelly S
2 months ago "
What an amazing hunt. The owners did their homework to know it was an archaeological site. That would have been amazing to hunt there". A commercial artefact hunting rally in Britain targeting a known site again.  |
| screenshots from You Tube |
But it's OK you might think, they have an archaeologist with a tattoo and look-at-me bright crimson hair clashing with apple-green glasses frames on the site overseeing the whole process. So when one of them irresponsibly digs really, really deep following a signal down below ploughgirl depth, said archaeologist (who is this? She's not introduced) is shown sitting calmly beside the narrow, blind-dug hole with the broken bit of pewter plate on its edge explaining that she does not know what the guy has dug right into the middle of but talking to the Treasure hunters about Roman hoards.
Now this is the point where archaeological good practice would entail giving the bloke (ir)responsible a good bollocking for digging so deep (against the Code, "voluntry innit?") necessitating taking special and expensive extra measures, infilling the exposed feature and contacting the landowner to get him to park a piece of agricultural machinery over the spot to secure it from unauthorised interference and shut off activity from that part of the field until this (potential) national Treasure findspot can be properly dealt with.
After all, what could this be? There are archaeological precedents for this being a deposit of vessels at one end or other, or in the middle of, an inhumation grave, where probably due to this soil preservation of bones and organics would be poor (like the 'sandmen' of the cemetery at Sutton Hoo nearby). It could be a deposit in the burial chamber of a chamber grave, or even a boat burial where the covering mound has been ploughed away. it could be a single isolated hoard buried well away from other features in an empty landscape, or like the deposits across Northern Europe, one of many groups of material deposited at a particular significant place. Obviously to investigate that context, a larger area will need to be opened and carefully explored, with the appropriate sampling techniques (for example soil phosphates) employed. That is what an archaeologist contracted by a commercial artefact hunting rally organizer should be explaining (as "outreach") to the tubby ageing blokes gathered around that hole, and then professional ethics would bind them to ensuring that this was set in motion. Otherwise, why be there?
But then it turns out from the film that there is a "rally archaeologist" - though it is odd that when you see them in action, there is a group of blokes in Joan Allen teeshirts, and guys with "East of England rallies" logos on their shirts in hi-vis jackets. What kind of archaeologists are these? Ms Crimson Hair has vanished. The blokes use string and nails to lay out a wholly inadequate 1-meter square hole and begin lowering the soil in "20 cm" spits around the central hoik hole. They are shown using pinpointers to make sure no "artefacts" are lost. Hang the stratigraphy eh? Anyway when they get (in how much time?) to the artefact bearing level... (ie an arbitrary horizontal slice through the top of whatever deposit the targeted artefacts are in and under) we see in the side of the trench the bottom of the, quite shallow, ploughsoil in the side of their sondage. Its more than half way up the trench wall! The excavators have apparently dug through it, even their hole was not big enough to detect the edges of any feature the objects were in and excavate it stratigraphically. I wonder if this was a surprise to them. Then we see that their hurried scraping and levering (yes! see video) has damaged the majority of the rim of the lower vessel, that's apart from the big fragment broken off the top one by the finder. We also see at least four other vessels in the metre-square sondage.. so clearly the deposit is more complex than the detectorists hoik hole had indicated. Quelle surprise, eh?
After all, what could this be? There are archaeological precedents for this being a deposit of vessels at one end or other, or in the middle of, an inhumation grave, where probably due to this soil preservation of bones and organics would be poor (like the 'sandmen' of the cemetery at Sutton Hoo nearby). It could be a deposit in the burial chamber of a chamber grave, or even a boat burial where the covering mound has been ploughed away. it could be a single isolated hoard buried well away from other features in an empty landscape, or like the deposits across Northern Europe, one of many groups of material deposited at a particular significant place. Obviously to investigate that context, a larger area will need to be opened and carefully explored, with the appropriate sampling techniques (for example soil phosphates) employed. That is what an archaeologist contracted by a commercial artefact hunting rally organizer should be explaining (as "outreach") to the tubby ageing blokes gathered around that hole, and then professional ethics would bind them to ensuring that this was set in motion. Otherwise, why be there?
But then it turns out from the film that there is a "rally archaeologist" - though it is odd that when you see them in action, there is a group of blokes in Joan Allen teeshirts, and guys with "East of England rallies" logos on their shirts in hi-vis jackets. What kind of archaeologists are these? Ms Crimson Hair has vanished. The blokes use string and nails to lay out a wholly inadequate 1-meter square hole and begin lowering the soil in "20 cm" spits around the central hoik hole. They are shown using pinpointers to make sure no "artefacts" are lost. Hang the stratigraphy eh? Anyway when they get (in how much time?) to the artefact bearing level... (ie an arbitrary horizontal slice through the top of whatever deposit the targeted artefacts are in and under) we see in the side of the trench the bottom of the, quite shallow, ploughsoil in the side of their sondage. Its more than half way up the trench wall! The excavators have apparently dug through it, even their hole was not big enough to detect the edges of any feature the objects were in and excavate it stratigraphically. I wonder if this was a surprise to them. Then we see that their hurried scraping and levering (yes! see video) has damaged the majority of the rim of the lower vessel, that's apart from the big fragment broken off the top one by the finder. We also see at least four other vessels in the metre-square sondage.. so clearly the deposit is more complex than the detectorists hoik hole had indicated. Quelle surprise, eh?
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| Screenshots from YouTube. This. is. Not. Archaeology. [but I doubt many British archaeologists would dare to say it out loud to the Public] |
This is another Lenborough fiasco. The site was not secured, both the context of deposition and the objects themselves were stripped of some (probably much) of their information value by the unprofessional, irresponsible and impatient manner in which an attempt was made to recover them quickly. Once again. This is Euston Estate hoard, apparently from September 2022. There is another vide of its digging shown on the commercial rally organiser's webpage here (and here on You Tube) It is an incredibly uninformative and disjointed presentation of very little documentary value - but why is one of the investigators shown with an obscured (pixelated) face - but not butt crack?
I hope we hear more about this find in the future. You know, some actual discussion.
Post scriptum:
Here is my You Tube comment to the Treasure Hunter's video since nobody in the UK seems bothered to pay any attention to the issues raised by the limited scope f the information the viewing public is getting here.
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