9th July 2005, 10:47 PM
first off... thanks for coming back!
I think you have in fact hit the nail on the head first time... All of us suffer at the hands of Night hawks... The Unit in question.. could have solved the problem and made a real differnce to community archaeology by just asking a local group (in my county we keep a standing list of amatuer archaeologists, vollunteers and detectorists.) Sounds like they were just being lazy and also forgetting that the whole point of what we do is to get people involved.
We have another similar site up near us... Big contractor has been digging it with both locals and detectorists... a real success that makes us look like the good guys!
I have asked detectorists about site seeding... they have jsut laughed and suggested that it was fairly pointless.. you can filter out signals... so... stainless steel... set to ignore... and off you go..... aluminium... no problem. These guys told me this after a discussion on seeding sites to protect them... thier suggestion was... and I honestly believe it is the most practical... was to have them very publically remove all topsoil finds... record them.. hand them over... keep em... it did not matter to them... jsut finding and being part of it was the buzz for them. Nighthaks will not search a site that has been 'cleared' already.....
Pity the company did not think about all this.
Once again... welcome back
Another day another WSI?
I think you have in fact hit the nail on the head first time... All of us suffer at the hands of Night hawks... The Unit in question.. could have solved the problem and made a real differnce to community archaeology by just asking a local group (in my county we keep a standing list of amatuer archaeologists, vollunteers and detectorists.) Sounds like they were just being lazy and also forgetting that the whole point of what we do is to get people involved.
We have another similar site up near us... Big contractor has been digging it with both locals and detectorists... a real success that makes us look like the good guys!
I have asked detectorists about site seeding... they have jsut laughed and suggested that it was fairly pointless.. you can filter out signals... so... stainless steel... set to ignore... and off you go..... aluminium... no problem. These guys told me this after a discussion on seeding sites to protect them... thier suggestion was... and I honestly believe it is the most practical... was to have them very publically remove all topsoil finds... record them.. hand them over... keep em... it did not matter to them... jsut finding and being part of it was the buzz for them. Nighthaks will not search a site that has been 'cleared' already.....
Pity the company did not think about all this.
Once again... welcome back
Another day another WSI?