PAS and its Falling Standards

From "Cleethorpes", WTF? Who's the FLO and finds advisor responsible for this ridiculous number-bulking travesty?

Record ID: NLM-5B1844
Object type: HANDAXE
Broad period: PALAEOLITHIC
County: North East Lincolnshire
Workflow stage: Awaiting validation Find awaiting validation
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Brown iron-stained flint with recently-reforming cortex, possible hand axe, as kindly identified by the finder. A thick chunk bearing scars from the removal of broad flakes by robust hard hammer working across one side and two long edges; part of one broad side is apparently left unworked. The object nevertheless sits comfortably in the hand if its ends are to be used for a vertical pounding action. Both ends show damage from relatively light battering. Suggested date: Lower Palaeolithic, 500,000-150,000 BC Length: 170mm, Width: 94mm, Thickness: 65mm, Weight: not measured, in excess of 500gms

Class: Abbeville
Subsequent actions
Subsequent action after recording: Returned to finder

Chronology
Broad period: PALAEOLITHIC
Subperiod from: Early
Period from: PALAEOLITHIC
Subperiod to: Early
Period to: PALAEOLITHIC
Date from: Circa 500000 BC
Date to: Circa 150000 BC

Discovery metadata
Method of discovery: Metal detector
General landuse: Coastland
Specific landuse: Marine


Created on: Tuesday 15th October 2019
Last updated: Wednesday 16th October 2019
Author: [blank- author is too coy to say]
Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'Cleethorpes', grid reference and parish protected.

The photo is crap, totally inadequate as a piece of archaeological documentation, where did the (anonymous - not surprising) FLO go to archaeology school? Judging by what that "documentation" barely shows, we might ask what was the reason they failed to profit from "prehistory 101" there, and in particular the block of classes on lithic technology. 

The photo shows what is technically called in lithic parlance in most countries something like "just a blooming piece of stone" or words to that effect. It looks for all the world that what was given back to the finder (really? Did the FLO have it in their hand?) is a battered and rolled flint cobble. I am assuming it is flint because the PAS record says so. Though what they mean by "recently-reforming cortex" and how they can tell is anyone's guess (so here it really WOULD help us to interpret these records if we knew who it was writing these words).

What nonsense is the information on context of discovery: "Metal detector, General landuse: Coastland, Specific landuse: Marine". You don't find flint lumps with a metal detector. Was it found on the beach? Why not say so? That would explain why it is so rolled, wouldn't it? Again and again, the PAS shy away from spending time to provide the full data.

What has happened here? This is a pure guess: my bet is that the FLO did not actually have this thing in their hand and a deluded finder sent them a picture of a rock, calling it a "handaxe" and the FLO needed to meet their monthly finds quota and (having a photo), slipped it onto the database. That'd be why it says: "possible hand axe, as kindly identified by the finder". I think the description is by the finder too:

"A thick chunk bearing scars from the removal of broad flakes by robust hard hammer working across one side and two long edges; part of one broad side is apparently left unworked. The object nevertheless sits comfortably in the hand if its ends are to be used for a vertical pounding action. Both ends show damage from relatively light battering".

A handaxe is used for chopping, not "battering", there is no edge retouch I can see in the photo, and the flake scars are shallow with no bulbs I can see, so I do not know where this guff about a hammer comes from. In my opinion, from the photo, there is not any part of this battered and rolled that is humanly-worked. If we had the object to hand to analyse more carefully than that brief "description" (note it mixes interpretation and observation, rather than making an effort to keep them separate), or at least somebody to take a more informative photos, we might be able to say more.

I think the evidence we have to hand suggests that it is more likely to be a piece of tabular flint that was broken/eroded from a chalk (probably) layer long, long ago, got rolled about in some fast-moving water, possible secondarily buried in a drift (glacial) deposit, got eroded from that and rolled about some more and then was found by a numpty who thought the shape was 'like' a handaxe.

What is interesting is that on eBay (as well as in the offer of a certain prominent UK auctioneer) are a whole series of flint pieces (pseudolithics, I call them) that are interpreted (and being sold) as ancient lithic tools (the argument "sits comfortably in the hand" is often represented as the clinching one as if no natural stone would ever be of a shape you could hold comfortably to bash something).  I have suggested that the PAS FLOs are not doing enough to educate the public (finders that put this stuff on the market and the PAS-paying public who are the potential victims of these misidentifications) about the features of real archaeological flintwork. This find on the database makes me wonder whether that would be wise in every case anyway. Which FLO authored this? 

What point are anonymous and incomplete "data" of such poor quality (or ambiguous veracity), mixed in among the rest? What is the value of a database containing an unknown percentage of such data? When are the backlog of unverified records going to be cleared by the PAS finds advisors?