Sunday 17 March 2024

Dumbest Journalist Award 2024 Goes to Tracy

 Tracy is a Liz Truss lookalike and fancies herself as a journalist. So she wrote this: "How detectorists thrashed archaeologists at their own game" (Telegraph 16.03.2024)*. Dumb reporters in the UK are now unable to distinguish between archaeology and metal detecting. They seem to consider both are about finding things, not understanding things. So she talked to two tekkies, Julian and Sophie, did not bother with the archaeologists and wrote... a load of crap.  Of course she starts off with the fictional "Detectorists" series...

On a wider cultural level, TV shows such as BBC’s Detectorists; the Michaela Strachan-fronted Digging for Treasure and new Channel 5 drama Finders Keepers (starring Neil Morrissey, James Buckley and Fay Ripley), are driving the trend.
So it is not about greed at all, its "British kulcha" you see. But once she gets away from "wots on the telly", she flounders:
So popular has public metal-detecting become that every year 96 per cent of all metallic archaeological objects are found by a detectorist compared to 2 per cent from archaeological digs.
Tell that to any collections manager in a county museum. Where did she get that idea from, well, the metal detectrists of course. Innit, Trace? Then its the bit about how much money you too could make if youget a detector and "have-a-go". Cue: so-called Crosby Garrett helmet, Staffordshire Hoard ... but then a novelty, fake-find-Jonesy, the site-seeding tekkie from Wales who "just wanted to grab some glory and tried to pull some mild perception” (sic).
 
Then the de rigeur "it's better for mental health than walking the countrydide with: your wife/kids/ Suzie from the off-licence/ her sister/ birdwatching binoculars/ or dog" which is what they all say now... totally omitting the fact that digging holes into the archaeoogical record and pocketing bits of it, reported or not, is NOT good for the health of the archaeological record or cultural landscape. And THIS is what PAS should be telling them and every journalist in hearing distance.

Another tripup:
Last year, a law change meant that seeking lucrative bragging rights to a find (one coin or artefact) or a hoard (multiple finds in one concentrated area) is becoming more difficult for rogue detectorists. Previously, the UK definition of Treasure under the 1996 Treasure Act was any metallic object with at least 10% of its weight being gold or silver, that is at least 300 years old when found. In 2023, the definition was updated and now any object found after July 30 2023 that doesn’t meet that criteria but is made at least partially of metal, is at least 200 years old and provides insight into an aspect of national or regional history, archaeology or culture by its rarity, the location in which it was found or its connection with a particular person or event.
Where is the end of that sentence? And what does it have to do with "lucrative bragging rights"? And it just gets worse:
"Etiquette dictates that public detectorists should always seek the landowners’ permission before setting off [...]
That brings us to PC Plod's "nighthawking down". Duh. It's the law, Tracy, the law. 
anything found of possible historical or regional interest should be reported immediately to your local council’s Find Liaison Officer for verification and cataloguing. Depending on rarity and condition, most finds [...] will be passed on to museums.
Ummm- NO.

In my view, this is the DAMAGE the activity of PAS and the head-in-the-sand lethargic inactivity of other British archaeological bodeies are doing. A lot of people have got it into their heads that archaelogy is just about digging up old stuff, its nothing verey difficult, anyone can do it, there is no secret to doing it, just having a nack, archaeology is not really a discipline that you need to actually study to get to grips with. That's why you get some blonde "brand consultant/ event and content producer" who imagies she can just dash off an ill-researched text full of basic gaffes and it'll be just what the Torygraph and the Great British Public need. What was she thinking?

Read it here.

,

Thursday 14 March 2024

"Illegal Artefact Hunting Down", What are the facts?


The PAS estimates that there are 40000 metal detectorists in the UK, and Statista estimates the number of farmers in the UK 2021-2023 as approximately 104,700 (in the third quarter of 2023, compared with  103,900 in the previous quarter). Of these, in England the latest figures show that 54% of farms are owner occupied, but 31% mixed tenure and 14% wholly tenanted. Only the landowner can give metal detecting permissions. 

The metal detectorist can approach the landowner for a search-and-take permssion for a particular property - this may be a company or a member of Britain's nobility, but whoever they are, they will probably not be as easy to convince to let a stranger on the land however well they say they will behave there.

Here are some issues for them to sort out:

Crombie Wilkinson 'Permission for metal detecting on your land'
Farmers' World: 'Metal detectorists on your land – what farmers need to know'


Apart from property rights, there are insurance and liability issues, the possiblity that unknown intruders will cause unforseen damage etc. 

There are other landowners. Apart from private ownership, every single other piece of land is owned either by the Crown, Local Authorities, City Councils, or Town Councils. There is no such thing as public land in the UK there’s public access but that does not mean that it is public land. Many local authorities etc, and bodies such as the National Trust refuse to issue metal detecting permits for hobbyists. There is no list of such bodies. 

Most metal detectorists will want three or four 'permissions' in order to give their searching some elsticity and variety. For 40k detectorists that is between 120k to 160k search sites with permissions. 

If however there are only 100k farmers, and only 54k of them can issue ther own search-and-take permissions, and an unknown number of them will refuse outright, where is a metal detectorist to search legally?

The forums are full of people bemoaning the fact that they can't get 'permissions', there are webpages (here and here, for example)  and You Tube videos devoted to helping tekkies sort this out, there is also at least one book: David Villanueva, 'Permission Impossible: Metal Detecting Search Permission Made Easy' 2007.  The frequency this issue comes up shows it is a real problem in the UK.

Added to this is the fact that there are now commercial firms that offer landowners hundreds of pounds for a weekend's access to organize pay-to-dig events from which the organizers make a living. This is great for the many metal detectorist members who do not have to learn "how to get permissions" as they just pay the admission fee and get access to the land for a fixed period of time. As more and more landowners hear of this "business opportunity", even fewer wiill be willing to let individual hobbyists on their land for free. 

Also how many of these former participants, having scouted out the land, and its potential, cannot resist the temptation privately and clandestinely to revisit the site again in conditions of lesser visibility to have another go at an area they found 'productive' during the rally? This should not happen of course, but can anyone say that it does not? 

Likewise, the hobbyist who travels with a detector in his car boot out on a drive through the countryside and finding himself in a layby by a tall hedge on a quiet road with no traffic... and right by the road sign "Silver End", or "Old Hall Road", or "Viking Howe"... how many are not going to go through the hedge with their machine "just to see"?
    
I simply do not believe that real life actual circumstances support the glib assertion that "only a minimum of metal detectorists use their machine in situations that are not in accord with the law". It beggars belief. 

Where is the report? 


 




"Nighthawking Down", Right to Roam ?



     One approach to the problem    
Highflyer Sunday 24th January 2016quotequote all
Caught two guys walking around my field today early afternoon with metal detectors, when I asked them if they had found anything the reply was no. I politely asked them who had given permission to just enter my field and walk around with metal detectors, the reply was, "we have the right to roam", at this point I completely lost the plot and basically made a few suggestions that if they didn't leave immediately I would take matters into my own hands[...]

Wednesday 13 March 2024

Artefact Smugglers Arrested (Coins Involved too)

 The French Customs Intelligence Service (DNRED) announced the recovery of 8,597 ancient coins of Anatolian origin following a sting operation resulting from a three-year investigation. The coins are set to be repatriated to Türkiye.



The coins were found hidden in boxes, television cabinets and refrigerator bags in a house raided in 2022. The organizers of a smuggling network were arrested in Türkiye and the authorities are preparing to try the individuals who resided in the house where the smuggled artifacts were found. The residents are accused of illegally selling more than 7,000 of the 15,000 recovered antiquities.

It's not just Metal Detecting, Britain Failing to Protect Heritage from Theft and Vandalism


       .You don't know what          
you had till you lose it

Britain really is going to the dogs, it seems as thefts of historic stone and metal across England are increasing:
Thefts of historic stone and metal are on the rise, according to a new report by Historic England and the National Police Chiefs' Council. It sets out how walls and paving slabs were stolen in Yorkshire and Cheshire, while granite troughs and fountains were taken in Kent and London. Meanwhile, metal thefts from church roofs were particularly common during the Covid lockdowns, the report added.

BBC News, Thefts of historic stone and metal on the up across England - report   

The Guardian, Vandalism on rise at historic English sites amid cost of living crisis – report.

I am Calling this BS

 In the UK, the police are as useless at stopping archaeological looting as everywhere else, except they won't admit it. Seen by a reader in the "Police professional" magazine (" More accurate police recording of heritage crime needed, says research " 13 March 2024) is this little gem:

A reduction in unlawful metal detecting (also known as nighthawking) has been achieved with the support of landowners and the metal detecting community, with offenders being identified and brought to justice;

Last thing I heard, in Britain landowners were advised, by the police no less, to avoid approaching illegal metal detectorists because there was a danger of physical harm. So what does "support of landowners" mean in actual terms? That landownersd phone them up and report any illegal activity spotted? If that is increasing, it only means they are being spotted more frequently. 

More to the point, what does it mean saying illegal artefact hunting has been reduced because of the "support of the metal detecting community"? What is meant by that, that metal detectorists are "shopping" other members of the community? Certainly if you look at the metal detecting forums, you will see that until now, there has been the opposite tendency - of detectoriusts sticking together and refusing to speak out directly about individusals they know are involved. There was only one circumstance when they would - in revenge for something. So what has changed? 

What we do know is that the number of artefact hunters with metal detectors has risen in teh past few years, quite massively. Yet the number of accessible sites has not increased. As for frequency of "permissions", this too is unlikely to have gone up as more and more commercial metal detecting firms offer increasing numbers of landowners cash-for-access to undetected land. What farmer would let some blokes on his land for free when he could et a pocketful of money by saving it for those who pay? So is this not a reason why some will go to secluded parts of such land in the failing light of evening without asking first? Is the number of people that do this the same as it was a decade ago, smaller or bigger? 

It'd be interesting to see the methodology of assessing the number of episodes of illegal artefact hunting in Britain, and how they've established this factoid that there has been a reduction. "It has a familiar smell of the countryside about it" as a correspondent wrote.

  


Tuesday 12 March 2024

Sword "Pulled" but What is the Context?

                ,                 

Alexander Butler, "Rare 1,100-year-old Viking sword pulled from Oxfordshire river" Independent 12.032024.
A 1,100-year-old Viking sword has been pulled from an Oxfordshire river in a rare discovery unearthed by a magnet fisherman. The weapon was found in the River Cherwell last year and has now been confirmed to date back to between AD 850 and 975. Despite the nearby landowner not allowing magnet fishing, he agreed no legal action would be taken and it is now in the care of the Oxford Museum.
More fool him. Apparently the findspot was by a bridge, possibly itself on an earlier crossing. But instead of talking about lost context by the brutal blind amateur hoiking, the dozy journalist who knows no better (and probably forgot the bit he had at school about magnetism) tried to link it with a lead sling bullet from Spain. 

Note for journalists lost for a story about magnet fishing for artefacts:

Craig Simpson, 'Don’t use magnets to seek treasure, experts warn after technique damages Viking sword found in river' (Telegraph 23 January 2024)
The British Museum has urged detectorists not to go “magnet fishing” to retrieve treasure after a Viking sword was damaged while being dredged from a river.[...] experts are determined to persuade those seeking treasure to stop using the increasingly popular technique of “fishing” for artefacts in waterways using powerful magnets. [...] The warning from the PAS comes after a Viking sword was damaged while being pulled out of the River Wallers Haven in Suffolk. The remains of the hilt fell off and were lost in the river.[...] “There is also the risk of damage to the object and its archaeological context, particularly at sites of ritual deposition. The PAS advises against this activity, which is banned by the Canal and River Trust on its waterways.”
This is a quote from the 2022 PAS annual report (p. 13), fully abvailable online. In the case of the damaged sword, the artefact hunter stood there gawping helplessly as the preserved organic remains of the hilt - an extremely rare survival - were washed off, disintegrated and dropped back into the river due to the method used to remove it from the undisturbed context in which it had lain more than a millennium.

It really could not be clearer. 

Hat tip Dave Coward

 
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