22nd July 2006, 08:24 AM
Peter attempts to provide some justification, but:
1) What has been declared to be nationally important are not just the Neolithic features but the whole landscape around the earthworks, and getting that point over was the whole focus of the recent (ongoing) conservationist campaign. Metal objects may have been accidentally lost or deliberately deposited at any time and reflect varying use of that landscape throughout the last few millennia. In particular, the area is a focus of Early Bronze Age activity apparently associated with the henges, and ritually or otherwise deposited metal objects from this period - especially so close to the edge of the monument itself - are significant. There is however no guarantee that a detectorist finding a bit of EBA metalwork (or anything else) on this rally will report it and David or yourself cannot be everywhere at once.
2) This is not a controlled fieldwalking exercise but a metal detecting rally. The manner of collection of evidence (various people picking up random objects from random areas within 1000 acres and reporting a random number of them to several different archaeologists in different places at different times over a period of three days) is not the best way to record the boundaries and internal patterns of density of flint scatters. That flints are in the topsoil we know of course, but this is not the method to record their distribution in a manner that is archaeologically useful.
3) The "artefacts in the topsoil" are part of the archaeological evidence about the use of that landscape and as such to have a real chance to contribute in any substantial way and in any detail to our knowledge of the site their recovery should be in accordance with a systematic search structured within a properly formulated programme which everybody understands and abides to. Conditions which this "metal detecting rally" are unlikely to be able to fulfil.
Nobody involved in this almost universal BAJR support of the metal detectorist's "rights" has yet explained why this is different from the guys "saving" the heads of Buddha statues from "weathering away" in the Cambodian jungle and sending them where people can look at them and "look after them". The use of a chisel is not bad, nor are the owners of chisels (I have several), but in this case the use of chisels for artefact hunting... I would like the pro-detectng lobby to explain WHY its not the same, instead of stubbornly insisting that its not and calling us "ostriches".
This shows the terminology you are using is imprecise, which is why I use the term "artefact hunter". The term "metal detector user" is inadeaquate to describe the phenomenon at issue (as you pointed out they have other uses, such as to search for minerals, and you get them in check-in terminals at airports). What is wrong - or insulting - in calling a spade a spade so we have clarity what precisely we are discussing? Closer definition of the phenomenon is a way of avoiding those "stereotypes" and misunderstandings surely.
Paul Barford
1) What has been declared to be nationally important are not just the Neolithic features but the whole landscape around the earthworks, and getting that point over was the whole focus of the recent (ongoing) conservationist campaign. Metal objects may have been accidentally lost or deliberately deposited at any time and reflect varying use of that landscape throughout the last few millennia. In particular, the area is a focus of Early Bronze Age activity apparently associated with the henges, and ritually or otherwise deposited metal objects from this period - especially so close to the edge of the monument itself - are significant. There is however no guarantee that a detectorist finding a bit of EBA metalwork (or anything else) on this rally will report it and David or yourself cannot be everywhere at once.
2) This is not a controlled fieldwalking exercise but a metal detecting rally. The manner of collection of evidence (various people picking up random objects from random areas within 1000 acres and reporting a random number of them to several different archaeologists in different places at different times over a period of three days) is not the best way to record the boundaries and internal patterns of density of flint scatters. That flints are in the topsoil we know of course, but this is not the method to record their distribution in a manner that is archaeologically useful.
3) The "artefacts in the topsoil" are part of the archaeological evidence about the use of that landscape and as such to have a real chance to contribute in any substantial way and in any detail to our knowledge of the site their recovery should be in accordance with a systematic search structured within a properly formulated programme which everybody understands and abides to. Conditions which this "metal detecting rally" are unlikely to be able to fulfil.
Quote:quote:Originally posted by drpeterwardleWell, nobody here said they all were. Some detector-users will be keeping away from this event on principle. Good for them. But its not owning or using the tool which is at issue, it is what it is used for which is. And in the cases we are discussing that is to hunt for archaeolgical artefacts (in this case from an area of known and widely accepted archaeological significance) for personal collection and sometimes sale.
4. Can we get rid of this great stereotyping that anybody who uses a a device capable of detecting metal or mineral is bad.
Nobody involved in this almost universal BAJR support of the metal detectorist's "rights" has yet explained why this is different from the guys "saving" the heads of Buddha statues from "weathering away" in the Cambodian jungle and sending them where people can look at them and "look after them". The use of a chisel is not bad, nor are the owners of chisels (I have several), but in this case the use of chisels for artefact hunting... I would like the pro-detectng lobby to explain WHY its not the same, instead of stubbornly insisting that its not and calling us "ostriches".
This shows the terminology you are using is imprecise, which is why I use the term "artefact hunter". The term "metal detector user" is inadeaquate to describe the phenomenon at issue (as you pointed out they have other uses, such as to search for minerals, and you get them in check-in terminals at airports). What is wrong - or insulting - in calling a spade a spade so we have clarity what precisely we are discussing? Closer definition of the phenomenon is a way of avoiding those "stereotypes" and misunderstandings surely.
Paul Barford