What is the Matter with Metal Detectorists? Whence this Pettyness?

Over on a tekkie-blog near you: Posted on February 21, 2025 by John Howland “The best revenge is massive success” - the topic? "[Here is] a reminder for that Holier-than-thou cadre in the heritage mob’s ivory tower of those who we know about (so far) who’ve been nabbed with their sticky mitts in the cookie amphora".  Oh dear. Howland seems to have an obsession about this. 

1) "the infamous Ralph Pinder-Wilson case; the British archaeologist who was sentenced to death for thieving gold coins from an excavation in Afghanistan in 1982":
  Here he is writing about the Pinder-Wilson affair Dec 16th 2014, he gets it wrong (which I pointed out at the time). Howland returned to it not long ago... (Let them who are without sin… etc, etc… , Detecting and Collecting Blog, December 5, 2022). Again, I pointed out.... UK Detectorist Accuses "Thieving Archaeologists". Howland is a really s-l-o-w learner, here I set out again to try to get him to abandon his cardboard cutout view of reality... 

To NO AVAIL...In this new text he once again repeats his false narrative. The guy has no idea. 

But his second "case study" is equally wrong-footed.

2)"Prof Daniel Amick’s sticky finger exercises [...] for his part in a scheme to plunder artifacts from an archaeological site in New Mexico”. You'd think he'd check before coming out with provocative phrasing like that. If he'd looked into this, he'd have found a mention of an artefact hunter by the name of Scott Clendenin:

Clendenin, an arrowhead hunter who lived in Truth or Consequences, N.M., made regular trips to Jornada Del Muerto[...] Clendenin would document the location of any artifact he found using a GPS device and then pocket it, court documents alleged. Periodically, Clendenin allegedly would pass the information to Amick [...] According to court documents, Clendenin is believed to have harvested thousands of prehistoric arrowheads, some of which he sold on eBay.

It was these artefacts that were involved in this case. Amick was apparently handling artefacts found by an artefact hunter. A fuller story about the case, including the switching of the relevant laws is given in a text ("From ATADA’s email: The“Loyola Professor”..." ATADA News) by Jeb Taylor online since June, 2011. John Howland did not see it, nor did he spot the far more important issue here:

"Unfortunately, the ramifications of this event will have lasting effects that may negatively impact both amateur and professional archaeology. Initial inquiries to professional archaeologists suggest that many of the will no longer risk recording artifacts from private collections or working directly with amateur archaeologists."

3) Antonin DeHays is a Maryland historian described as a private researcher, so I am not clear what his case has to do with archaeology or metal detecting. 

4) Likewise military historian  Alexander Bateman, of Harrow, there is no connection I can see with archaeology or metal detecting.  

5) Britain’s amateur archaeological fieldwalking brigade the flint tool and arrowhead searchers are subjectr to the same conditions as metal detectorists. The point Howland is trying to make is lost on me. 

The last comment makes no sense at all: "Is it any wonder then, that Britain’s archaeological nabobs are keen to deny the existence of what might well be called Dayhawking? Too late for them though. That cat’s out of the bag!"
What's out of the bag is that some metal detectorists really need to take a deep breath and think a bit.