Help BAJR and the PAS at Thornborough

[Paul Barford]

quote:
[quote]Originally posted by BAJR Host

There is to be a Metal Detecting Rally to the North from 8th - 10th September.. [...] The big thing here is the potential for locating flint scatters.. but we will be 'working for the PAS in helping to record and report the finds that come in, photo the find, identify, plot, record etc.

Its really not at all clear to me from this announcement what is intended and what its goal is and who is organizing it.
Could you define more closely what you mean by "metal detecting rally" here? Is this some kind of Yorkshire Museum (or PAS/CBA??) community archaeology project? Why then would it be necessary to "report and photograph" the finds collected in this project on site, are the individuals taking part going to take them away? (If so, what happened to "Our Portable Past" as a model for working with artefact hunters?).

Neither do I really understand why one would need a metal detector for "locating flint scatters"? Surely gridded fieldwalking is the tool you need for that and to make a proper record (a record, that is, not of "the finds" so much as their context).

And if it really is a "metal detecting rally" adjacent to this somewhat emotive site and in this landscape which so many have campaigned so long and hard to protect, do you really see no problem in taking part and lending it legitimacy?

Paul Barford