"Uncovering History"? Digging Into Earthwork Site Under Pasture

The Code of best Practice for Metal Detecting in England and Wales says one thing, British detectorists do another and see nothing wrong with flaunting it in their clickbait videos. Here is some more detecting earthwork site under pasture... (Unearthed TV, Posted on You Tube Sep 13, 2023, 'Unearthed: Unbelievable Metal Detecting Discoveries'):

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2,743 views.

"In this video, we'll see some surprising discoveries made while metal detecting around the footprint of an ancient building. We'll be discussing how coins and other artefacts that were not expected were found while metal detecting around the remains of a building. By learning about these discoveries, you'll be able to have a more informed metal detecting experience and uncover buried secrets that would have otherwise gone undetected!"

There is no evidence that this area has been searched systematically, there seems to be no individual bagging and labelling of finds from different areas of the earthwork - and there seems to be no GPS plotting of the finds or logging them in any kind of documentation.

The find of a hammered silver coin "just above the building" (eh? No remains of the building have been exposed in the hole this came from) and therefore the digger reckons the "building could be older than I thought" - he ignores the issue that the coin is damaged and could well be redeposited). The digger seems unconcerned about the wide date range of the finds and relating them to the chronology of the use of the building. In any case, he's is not particularly bothered about determining the date of the structure he's digging into and ripping diagnostic finds from. He seems to place great store on "how deep" something was found, in the soil mixed by wartime (WW2) ploughing. Bonkers.

So basically what this shows is robber-digging of a site, part of the historical/cultural landscape of the region that could have yielded more information if properly examined, but now will not because the digger has pocketed a whole lot of undocumented metal artefacts ripped from it. You'll note he found not a single potsherd.

Shockingly, he proudly announces, "this has been a terrific example of how detecting can uncover history". No, actually no history is written from this, all he's done is filled his pockets with artefacts ripped from the historical record, just like if he was ripping pages from an old newspaper and discarding them unread - what is left cannot be used to recover the full history of the times they cover. It's the same with te traces of the building he's selfishly ripped collectables from. Note that his conclusion after all that hoiking is nothing more that "there's been a lot going on" (a phrase he likes using)

[By the way, with regard the artefact erosion counter issue, note the statement at 12:00: "Do you know what, I've been on fields where I've had 40 to 50 roman coins in an eight-hour session and I've enjoyed today just as mooch as those days"]

I really do think that my British colleagues who see this sort of activity as a good thing owe us, and the public in general, a bit better explanation of what - in archaeological (real archaeology) terms - is meant by the twee phrase "digging up history". We see loose artefacts in the molehills in the film, are British moles (Talpa europaea) also amateur history diggers? That is actually a serious question to those who treat artefact collectors with metal detectors as such. Doubt we'll get an answer from any of them.