The Implications of UK Detectorists Being Urged, in Private, NOT to Report their Finds

 

On a metal detecting forum near you, but in the sections that are closed off from public scrutiny by those who want to hide the utterly irresponsible, selfish and oikish way its members write there about pocketing the common archaeological heritage...  they are banging on about - despite the position they affect in public - "why it’s unwise to report your metal detecting finds":

“There are obvious downsides to recording finds with the PAS. You need to ensure that you ask for the records to be confidential. However if you record too many finds from a particular Parish it soons flags up as an area of potential [..]. Finds recorded with the PAS are regularly passed onto the County Historic Environment Records for use in responding to planning permission or research. However they are also used to feed into application for agri-environment schemes to identify known archaeological sites for protection with a no detetecting clause. Now the field can continue to be ploughed and so on, but not detected on. PAS records of detector finds are used to identify finds scatters and so on, so by recording you are often shooting yourself in the foot so to speak.”

Gor-blimey, eh? Let us just go back two steps, first metal detecting can take place on sites on Entry Level Stewardship land that are not otherwise designated as scheduled monuments, or as Sites of Special Scientific Interest "providing searchers follow the Code of Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting in England and Wales", and that in the case of rallies, the authorities get 12 weeks notice of any large scale metal detecting events on Environmental Stewardship land. Metal detecting cannot take place on archaeological sites on holdings with Higher Level Stewardship agreements or Sites of Special Scientific Interest without the permission of Natural England. In any case existing agreements on the agri-environment scheme expire in 2024, so not long for greedy tekkies to wait now. But for now, the detectorist has no choice, if they search land included in one of these agri-environmental schemes, the farmer (ie the guy that takes public money to see that its conditions are followed) must ensure the finds are being recorded, the detectorist who pockets them has no option otherwise.

Secondly, let us note what the term "agri-environment scheme" denotes, it is about protecting the environmental reources of land in agricultural use, that includes the historical environment. In public, metal detectorists claim they want to help "protect the past". What they say behind the closed doors of their forums is often diametrically the opposite. It should be noted that if information is obtained, for example from reporting via the PAS, that an important and vulnerable site exists, that site should be protected from as much avoidable damage as possible. This is, in fact, one of the reasons why the PAS exists, to allow responsible detectorists to responsibly report what they are finding - precisely to use them as archaeology's "eyes on the ground" to elicit such information. If detectorists are being urdged not to report what they find, they no longer function as "partners" and we can just scrap the PAS, and spend the money somewhere else and deal with the artefact hunters and looters by other means.