26th December 2005, 05:10 PM
John, I'm not sure that I said anything about a ban. I don't really see such a ban would work in any case - if police don't bother to patrol our town centres on a Saturday night or even investigate burglaries and car crime, I can't see them sending patrol cars and helicopters out to check on remote fields in case someone is using a detector. Maybe there is such a thing as a metal detector detector....
Then, how far does it go? Do you ban unlicensed fieldwalking as well? OK this doesn't involve digging stuff out, unless an artefact is embedded, but evidence is removed from its last location. So do you then ban anyone from stooping to pick something up?
No-one has yet answered the usual MD query about machine stripping topsoil. I would say that in many cases the site is indeed fieldwalked and subject to non-intrusive survey (maybe including metal detectors) before topsoil removal, but it depends entirely on the circumstances, including time available, previous land use, nature of the site and so on. Trowelling of the topsoil is unlikely to be viable in a commercial context, I would fancy.
Finally I would like to see EH's reaction to an application for SMC that included a research design proposing machining through medieval contexts to get at the Roman. I suspect that such a proposal would not be greeted with huge enthusiasm.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
Then, how far does it go? Do you ban unlicensed fieldwalking as well? OK this doesn't involve digging stuff out, unless an artefact is embedded, but evidence is removed from its last location. So do you then ban anyone from stooping to pick something up?
No-one has yet answered the usual MD query about machine stripping topsoil. I would say that in many cases the site is indeed fieldwalked and subject to non-intrusive survey (maybe including metal detectors) before topsoil removal, but it depends entirely on the circumstances, including time available, previous land use, nature of the site and so on. Trowelling of the topsoil is unlikely to be viable in a commercial context, I would fancy.
Finally I would like to see EH's reaction to an application for SMC that included a research design proposing machining through medieval contexts to get at the Roman. I suspect that such a proposal would not be greeted with huge enthusiasm.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.