17th January 2014, 05:58 PM
BAJR Wrote:I agree that a valuable tool would be collection and resource/location spreadsheet. do detectorists find more artefacts in similar areas than archaeolgoists? do archaeologists only really find things in areas where there is activity and therefore more chance for objects not to be lost? or hidden. etc
Here's some food for thought: was reading one of the more enlightened regional research frameworks the other day for a P.D., and it had this to say about later prehistoric sites in the region -
'the metal detector may be the prime equipment for locating [later prehistoric] sites... where handmade pottery in the ploughsoil has been degraded through intensive arable cultivation over many years'.
Turns out to be spot on for one site I was looking at, where (pre-PAS) detected prehistoric metalwork finds outstripped sherds of prehistoric pot by about 8:1. And how many fieldwalking surveys have a metal-detecting element? Not many, in my exp. Even if they did, how many archaeologists are capable of operating a detector? I barely know one end from another!
If we incorporated detecting into our work more, we might start to get useful data, but to return to the original point of the thread I fear cherry-picking random samples of existing excavation data and comparing apples & oranges in order to sling mud at detectorists isn't going to be a useful contribution to the debate.