Metallic Finds Rates on excavations

[P Prentice]

using metal detectors on my sites is my standard default position regardless of what curators require. i am happy to work with metal detectorists who are able to work methodically and according to the research design. i feel the more i work with the more will be out there doing it properly. i know that many i have worked with now also dig. unfortunately there are still those that can not be trusted and those that appear convincing only to be found gaining entry on land by using my organisation as a referee having once been given access to my excavation.

[Mike.T.]

go on then - inform me

You said that half of detectorists ( which is about 20,000 people in the UK btw) may well be '' verging on criminal ''. Completely untrue.

That most doing it don't know what they are doing ( how do you know this ? ) and if you're competent at using an MD you're more likely to be a criminal than not.

Also completely untrue.

[P Prentice]

You said that half of detectorists ( which is about 20,000 people in the UK btw) may well be '' verging on criminal ''. Completely untrue.

That most doing it don't know what they are doing ( how do you know this ? ) and if you're competent at using an MD you're more likely to be a criminal than not.

Also completely untrue.

lots of unsupported assumptions here mike

[In the Pit]

I agree that a valuable tool would be collection and resource/location spreadsheet. do detectorists find more artefacts in similar areas than archaeolgoists? do archaeologists only really find things in areas where there is activity and therefore more chance for objects not to be lost? or hidden. etc

Here's some food for thought: was reading one of the more enlightened regional research frameworks the other day for a P.D., and it had this to say about later prehistoric sites in the region -
'the metal detector may be the prime equipment for locating [later prehistoric] sites... where handmade pottery in the ploughsoil has been degraded through intensive arable cultivation over many years'.
Turns out to be spot on for one site I was looking at, where (pre-PAS) detected prehistoric metalwork finds outstripped sherds of prehistoric pot by about 8:1. And how many fieldwalking surveys have a metal-detecting element? Not many, in my exp. Even if they did, how many archaeologists are capable of operating a detector? I barely know one end from another!

If we incorporated detecting into our work more, we might start to get useful data, but to return to the original point of the thread I fear cherry-picking random samples of existing excavation data and comparing apples & oranges in order to sling mud at detectorists isn't going to be a useful contribution to the debate.

[GnomeKing]

.... I fear cherry-picking random samples of existing excavation data and comparing apples & oranges in order to sling mud at detectorists isn't going to be a useful contribution to the debate.

fine, but;

i dont think it is just dectorists in line for a mud splattering......i anticipate evidence(at least circumstantial) that there unexpectedly low rates of small metalic finds from excavations, [especialy context '(100)/Topsoil']
and also;
this highlights a wider issue with lax approaches to 'ploughzone' archaeology in general....

[Tool]

Kinda in the King of Gnome's camp here. How much attention is paid to the top couple of layers of any site? Metallic finds or otherwise? Is it right that a WSI for an eval specifies that everything is machined off until either the natural or 'archaeology' is reached, where archaeology is taken to mean obvious features? OK, so an eval is only touching maybe 2% of that particular site, but...

[BAJR]

lots of unsupported assumptions here mike

and from you too PP...


I prefer hard facts.

[In the Pit]

fine, but;

i dont think it is just dectorists in line for a mud splattering......i anticipate evidence(at least circumstantial) that there unexpectedly low rates of small metalic finds from excavations, [especialy context '(100)/Topsoil']
and also;
this highlights a wider issue with lax approaches to 'ploughzone' archaeology in general....

Agree entirely. To be fair to them, EH have recognised this - NHPP 4G2 is putting funds into looking at ploughzone stuff. I know of one later prehistoric site where ploughing removed all traces of features in the 4 years between eval and excavation. No doubt there was still useful data to be gleaned from that site, but how would you go about it? Sieving every inch of ploughsoil obviously isn't practical. Intensive fieldwalking & detector survey would have yielded more data than excavation, but Catch-22 is that, for that sort of case, how d'you know there ain't any features left before you strip it?!...

...*Scratches head, reaches for more coffee*

[geo]

With paper thin profit margins the norm today one would expect senior management to consider very carefuly if to go ahead with the retrieval of lots of unstrat finds from spoil heaps. The cost implications this would bring with respect to conservation, curation and adding the info to the final report may well tip the project into the red. I have experienced this a few times when voluntering as a detectorist, where the Senior PO has told me that they now have a representative sample of RB finds so the rest can be left in the spoil.

[kevin wooldridge]

I think that the use of a metal detector as a geophysical survey tool shouldn't be overlooked here -not suitable for every site, but then again what geo-technical device is?