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local tv: metal detectorists vs archaeologists
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nigelswift
8112 posts

Re: In the gloom
May 31, 2007, 06:42
Littlestone, if you listen to Paul you may not get the full impact of just how severe is the loss....

He says that Joe Boggins
"has in his back bedroom a collection of (among other things) dozens, nay hundreds of brooches taken from a variety of Roman and Anglo Saxon sites within driving distance of his home, and also those he found on rallies in Yorkshires and Suffolk?"

Just yesterday, a detectorist wrote
"I have got 120 Roman brooches FROM JUST ONE FIELD"!
It is statistically likely that PAS haven't breen informed and it is practically certain that he will continue to harvest it until it yields no more. I wonder what that field was? Most probably, no-one will now ever know.

Of course (and assuming this IS one of the majority of cases that PAS weren't informed about) there is SOME good coming out of the situation. Either there will be a payback in terms of pride for the detectorist when he opens his Roman brooches draw, OR there will be a sense of pride on the part of 120 Connecticut hillbillies when they open THEIR drawers. I'd hazard a guess that as a conservator you have a tinge of annoyance about such a scenario and the fact that those are the only benefits that can be seen from such a wretched little process. And I think you'll be hard pushed to propose a "middle way" solution....
- a significant British Roman site gone without hope of future discovery and its only memorial a shadow of an outline in some acquisituive b***'s secret box of curios....
And there are a minimum of TEN THOUSAND detectorists in Britain, all of whom are dedicated to researching where they can find the "most productive" sites.
In reply to:
Re: In the gloom (Paul Barford)		 Replies:
Re: In the gloom (Littlestone)
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