Letter to a Journalist [Updated]

After reading and then writing on a freelance journalist's efforts to discuss artefact hunting in the British context, the only reaction possible is, why British archaeologists do not react? Why do journalists keep writing this stuff? I can only draw one of two conclusions: either they read what archaeologists say, and tell them about the damage done by collection-driven exploitation of the archaeological record and for some reason are ignoring it (" 'oo needs so-called experts, eh?"), or perhaps British archaeologists simply aren't saying it.  I guess it is easy to complain that "others should do" something. So I set out to do it myself this time. Here's my letter to the journalist concerned below (anyone else care to share in the comments below what they wrote?):

Dear Ms Bosley,

As somebody concerned about the preservation of the historical environment and the values of is unique, irreplaceable, fragile and finite archaeological record, I was puzzled about the tone of your recent Birmingham Mail article about participation in a commercial artefact hunting event (“I tried out metal detecting on a local farm and found something more precious than buried treasure”). Would you advocate the same activities of a for-profit looting organization if it was enabling removing ‘collectables’ (‘antiquities’) from ancient sites anywhere else in the world, Egypt, Iraq or Syria, for example? Or a historical shipwreck off the coast of Cornwall? Or stalactites from a cave high up in the Atlas Mountains? There is no difference. Is this a type of commerce that should gain public approval, or should it be called-out for what it is? In particular:

-       There is no mention in your text of the damage commercial rallies like this do, yet the information is out there only a mouse click away: “Large scale metal-detecting events (rallies) can result in the loss of archaeological information and possible damage to archaeology.” [https://finds.org.uk/getinvolved/guides/rallycode], See also: http://thepipeline.info/?s=detecting.

-        you do not mention  the 2017 Code of Best Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting in England and Wales [https://finds.org.uk/getinvolved/guides/codeofpractice  and https://youtu.be/bR4qwpN3TMw ], why?

-       still less, there is inexplicably no reference to public-funded Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) that records finds made by artefact hunters in order that the information about them and their findspots is not lost.  [https://finds.org.uk/about  and  https://finds.org.uk/getinvolved ]. Why?-       Neither does your article make reference to you actually determining the co-ordinates of the findspots of your own pocketed finds with a GPS or similar tool to then report them responsibly. Why? You took something away (from all of us, the history of that land is not yours alone), and did not think it important t replace it with even that snippet of information?

What however that article does is give a plug for the breed of irresponsible artefact hunters that make a commercial business of removing elements of the archaeological record for profit. They gain access to land with deposits containing archaeological and historical artefacts and make money by making them accessible to pay-to-dig artefact hunters randomly removing material often with minimal recording, damaging the archaeological record. The information about unwritten aspects of Britain’s past that lost through this activity is irreplaceable.

 In the last two decades or so, the number of metal detectorists pilfering the archaeological record for “cool things” to collect has risen from probably about 10,000 individuals to now 40,000 (figures from PAS). Collectively, figures suggest that they are currently removing over 1.2 million pieces of historical information annually from the archaeological record artefacts. Records exist of only a small proportion of those losses. In addition to being scattered in small personal collections, many tens of thousands of detected artefacts and coins end up annually on eBay and other online market places, fresh ones being sold there week after week, month after month. The archaeological record is clearly finite, and fragile. Many sites have already been all but stripped of anything of interest to collectors (and archaeologists). Huge areas of the historical landscape of the British Isles have been decimated by this activity, just as surely as the wild flowers and fauna have vanished from the same countryside in the same period. Gone.

 Alongside a great dose of official inaction, and lack of public awareness, irresponsible journalism that fails to depict the effects on the historical environment of this erosive and self-centred hobby for what they are and merely uses hobbyists’ “cool discoveries” as an easy source of a story is among the reasons why this problem is snowballing out of control.

 Yours sincerely

Paul Barford

It is not perfect, too long, but at least I tried. I've actually done these before, they are quite difficult to compose so as to get the main idea of a niche area of conservation (for that is what it is) over to a journalist who in real life covers hockey matches, the council not fixing the holes in a local road, why Brexit is bad for the cat food production industry, Suzie-What's-her-face's new "beach body" and woollen goods to gift aunties at Christmas (etc.). Also try and find archaeologist-written sources that a journalist "should have" consulted in researching such an article. Actually, there are three articulate articles on why rallies are a bad thing. One (Mark Bridge, a Times article) has inexplicably disappeared from the Internet, one (CBA magazine, Heyworth and Lewis) is not online, the third is full of Helsinki-hogwash and therefore does not get the point across that I am making. There is bugger all online (or in any public facing source that I can see) from archaeologists that explains the issue. WHY?? The same goes for commercial firms organizing rallies and metal detecting holidays. Find me an online or public-facing source written from an archaeological point of view explaining why they are bad (or even discssing whether or not they are bad). Yes, there's the Barford Blog, but I did not want to cite only my own material, there's a bit in Andy Brockman's Pipeline, Heritage Action blog... and... again, bugger all for the British public to read about the issues. Looking on the PAS blog for anything much about anything like this is simply a waste of time. WHY??

"Oh, we don't have time" is no doubt what they'll all whine. Offer them a spot on TV pandering to metal detectorists and mouthing a few scripted platitudes to halfwit 'celebrity' presenters and they'll find the time to spend three days in a field waiting to go on camera. But writing to an underinformed journalist, or writing public-facing materials to present artefact collecting and the antiquities trade more holistically (or even critically), well, that's something that most of them apparently think "somebody else" can do.

Updated 5th March 2023

For the record, journalist Ms Kirsty Bosley did not bother to even acknowledge receipt, let alone engage with anything I had spent time putting forward for her.  That British media are in the hands of journalists who write about things they know very little about, cannot be bothered to research first for context,  and zero people skills is clear. That does not absolve archaeologists and those concerned about environmental issues simply shrugging their shoulders. 

This is what happens to the "green and pleasant land" they all take for granted when everybody shrugs their shoulders and fail to react. Roadside litter - stuff just thrown out of car windows and left lying there, is now the UK's calling card for visitors. All over rural Britain, the underground heritage is being looted away for the selfish greed of those that live among this overground squalor.