Friday 8 November 2013

Focus on Metal Detecting: Verification of PAS data


In the light of the recent discovery of two Roman fibulae from the Weekend Wanderers' rally in the Wantage area which the evidence seems quite clearly to suggest were planted in recent times in order to be found during the rally, can we assume that the PAS will now prioritise the verification of the data from these searches and  supplied by anyone involved? Or will we left with a database containing huge amounts of unverified data? In the beginning there was a two-stage data-entry process, the FLO quickly  entered data as it came out of the ground, and then these entries were then checked and verified by a second reader. Over the past decade or so the numbers of items in the database which have not been subjected yet to this secondary accuracy check has increased enormously. The UKDFD operates a two-stage data entry process which still operates, but it seems the PAS has abandoned theirs for expediency. But does that not leave the data completely unverified?

No comments:

Post a Comment