Metal detector enthusiasts of all levels of ability have been invited to attend a newly formed club this weekend. The first meeting is being held at the Round House Hub and Café on Walney Island on Sunday (November 26) from 11am to noon. People will be educated on the importance of obtaining permission from the landowner before using a metal detector on beaches, footpaths, or council-owned land. A plan will then be put in place for metal-detecting sessions in the future. Seasoned detectorist Graeme Rushton, who has been a successful metal detector for over 40 years, will be in attendance. The session is free of charge and will gauge people's interest.What's this then? "People will be educated on the importance of obtaining permission from the landowner before using a metal detector on beaches, footpaths, or council-owned land ". Is that all anybody taking a spade to a site producing archaeological and historical finds needs to be "educated" about?
Is not Walney Island covered in SSSIs and NNRs? Even somewhere like that, it is symptomatic that there's be enough selfish would-be heritage diggers to form a club.
"Seasoned detectorist Graeme Rushton, who has been a successful metal detector (sic) for over 40 years, will be in attendance". No doubt to offer advice on what's the best machine to buy.
Shame on you Round House Hub and Cafe for hosting such a meeting! The archaeological and historical record in the ground is a priceless and finite resource. It is one that is also intensely threatened by being dug up non-archaeologically, by self-centred acquisitive individuals simply to get collectable items for personal entertainment and profit.
Unsystematically pulling random individual artefacts blindly out of the archaeological context (that is destroyed by people digging little holes all over it) is irreversible damage. It's like those people that cut up antiquarian books just to get the pictures to frame, or those who make collections of bird eggs taken from nests on the marshes.
You understand nature conservation I assume, what about conservation of the historical environment, is that a concept difficult to grasp? Will you be inviting the Portable Antiquities Scheme or any other heritage professionals to talk about the ethical side of the practice and responsible and irresponsible use of the historical environment? I hope so.
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5 comments:
Oh, just give it up already. Quit singling out relic hunters and detectorists as the bad guys. We all know who’s really to blame. It’s the archaeologists and their academic toadies who have destroyed the cultural record and profited off of antiquities for centuries under the guise of academia.
It seems rather a broad generalisation to say that it is "the archaeologists and their academic toadies" (meaning who, specifically?) who have "destroyed the cultural record and profited off of antiquities for centuries under the guise of academia". What do you mean? More specifically, who do you mean? Examples, please.
Odd that yet another "doctor" is taking an interest in goings-on in the Barrow area. Or rather, what Paul Barford writes about what's going on up there... "On Blogger since December 2023 Profile views - 1"
"profited off of"
Poor sods can never disguise themselves.
Yes, I wonder which university he got his doctorate from with "English" like that. Certainly not a Polish one, nobody here would write like that.
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