Sunday, 17 November 2024

Making Knowledge Ain't Just Digging up Old Stuff



A chip on the shoulder:

@graceygrumble 1 month ago (edited)
Detectorists and 'amateur' historians have made incalculable contributions to our discovery and understanding of the past. [....] The UK has a history of interested amateurs, more focused on 'doing' as opposed to expecting it to be done. Passion drives progress. We have an extraordinary number of people who are, for the most part, focused on 'giving back' as opposed to 'wealth creation'. Who were we? Who are we? What could we be? If we all waited around until someone with a 'certificate' was interested, we would know very little. We don't always need money to be enriched.

My reply: 

"If we all waited around until someone with a 'certificate' was interested, we would know very little". What do you mean by that? How many actual archaeological reports or articles about the "things found", for example in "Antiquity", "Britannia", "Medieval Archaeology" or by publishers like Brill or Routledge have been written by blokes and lasses off the street who happen to have metal detectors. How do you define "making knowledge"?

Can you not do better first aid, and avoid making bad mistakes, in the case of somebody who's suffered an accident if you HAVE done a course and been taught how to do it? that is get the proper qualifications? As in anything like that, no?

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