Help BAJR and the PAS at Thornborough

[Paul Barford]

quote:Originally posted by Petethedig

[quote]The fact is that sites that have been reported through the PAS(Artifact scatters) and therefore onto the SMR/HER are being put out of bounds for detecting. Talk to Peter McCrone of DEFRA, its public knowledge of course in the UK. So Thornborough still may be saved!

It is also "public knowledge" that chalk is not cheese; being included in CSS type agreements is not the same as scheduling. Thornborough henges and parts of the area around are safe (at the moment) from devastation by Tarmac, but not artefact hunters it seems.

I really don't get your [u]Corfe Castle rally </u>point. This was being held up not so long ago as a prime example of archaeologists and detectorists "working together". Now we find the finds have been scattered, and the only way the archaeologists can use the information from them now is to get the landowner to ask for them all back. So much for any "recording" that was done at the time of their recovery in this allegedly exemplary "working together". Let's hope PAS and David and his BAJR helpers are allowed by circumstances to make a better job at Thornborough... Again the recommendations of "Our Portable Past" seem inescapable as a model for this kind of work if it is to have any real meaning.

[u]Steve</u>, I already have other plans for the 8th to 10th September. Even if for some strange reason and going against everything I stand for I wanted to help artefact hunters build up their personal collections of archaeological artefacts taken from this site (which I do not), or saw the point of this manner of mitigating the inevitable loss of information this rally will incur (which I do not), and if getting there would be as effortless and expense free as you suggest (which it will not), I really cannot take part. And I certainly think there are better people to drag all the way up there to make the tea than Nigel.

But if it concerns you so much to find on an archaeological forum people who have various opinions on the matter of personal collection of archaeological artefacts, then perhaps you really should get better arguments on your side than "shooting deer is educational" or "why dont you get on a plane and come and join us" and the suchlike tosh.

Paul Barford