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nigelswift

8112 posts

Afore ye go....

Jun 02, 2007, 12:55

Before this thread slips into obscurity I'd like to respond to this (that went unchallenged and shouldn't have) -

Cymap said:
"I think you counter should actually say 9,000,000+ artifacts recovered and saved from destruction."

This is an iteration of a claim made by most detectorists, to the effect that ploughing and chemicals are destroying artefacts and detectorists are rendering a public service by "rescuing them". The following should be said:

The official view is that this problem is neither widespread enough nor fast enough to justify mass, random, unstructured removal of bits of the resource. PAS, EH, CBA etc don't say they support detecting in general because it is "rescue archaeology". Only detectorists and their supporters make such a claim.

To be believable, "rescuing on behalf of the public" would require the public to see a need for it, for the public's official bodies to be convinced it was needed, for them to specify the way it was done and for the artefacts and knowledge to be delivered to the public. That's not what happens.

So no, the counter shouldn't actually say 9,000,000+ artifacts recovered and saved from destruction" it should say what it says, and we'd have been perfectly justified if we'd added the word "selfishly".

(The reason I revisited this was because just today, on a detectorists' forum near here, I notice we have someone bemoaning the lack of finds on a field and saying yes, he'll certainly follow the helpful advice of his fellow forum-user - to offer to pay for the farmer's fuel if he'll go over it with a deeper plough to bring the finds up. Nice. )

Digging for your own benefit, either for recreation or profit If and where they see such a need then they would y would no doubt be orists "rescuing" everything rate and

In reply to:
local tv: metal detectorists vs archaeologists (Rhiannon)

Replies:
Re: Afore ye go.... (kevmar)

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