The Metal Detecting Debate. Keep all your MD questions and querys here!

RollYerOwn wrote: »

There's alot of stuff sold in shops that you can't use for certain purposes, but I agree they shouldn't really be selling them - and that is the way the law is more likely to change if you ask me. It's actually illegal to sell a metal detector for archaeological purposes - so if you were sold it for that reason, take it back and get your money back and report Maplin or whoever sold it to you. As someone who has used these cheap metal detectors in the past, they are pretty useless below the top 10-15 cms anyway - professional metal detectorists in the UK (and the criminals who use them here) spend more money on their equipment.

How is this stuff going to be found? Do you have an interest in the artefacts or the treasure/money? If you have an interest in the money you have no more right to the heritage which has lain undisturbed in the ground for hundreds or thousands of years than you would have if you robbed it from the museum. If you have an interest in the heritage itself then get involved in an archaeological society and join a project. Volunteering on an excavation might demonstrate to you how much archaeology (of the monetarily worthless kind) there is on an archaeological site in comparison to a metal object. Digging holes in this destroys it.

The usual way it is found is controlled archaeological excavation. Usually this precedes development which is going to destroy features and finds and is built into the planning legislation - but then most people don't like paying for this when they just want to make their bit of money off the land do they?

We don't have detectors for bone or wood objects - are you suggesting we only go looking for metal treasure? We can detect previously unknown sites with geophysical survey equipment without breaking ground. This is similar to metal detecting in that it needs a licence but illustrates (if conditions are right) the sub-soil features below the ground - but again this costs money. Why should a cheap gimmicky object like a metal detector be responsible for the looting of archaeological sites? It's a blunt tool used for the wrong reasons that leads to the theft and destruction of our heritage.

RollYerOwn wrote: »

I'm afraid you simply don't have any argument here. You want to change existing legislation.... So let's think about that..

You seem to think "the past is there for everyone"... but yet you would presumably turn your nose up at people taking shovels along to Tara and digging it up for themselves? Or perhaps you would allow that? Apparently not as you later appear to say "not at a National Monument". But what about the thousands upon thousands of upstanding sites throughout the country that are not National Monuments? Should they become a free for all? Should everybody be allowed to go in, dig them up with a JCB/shovel/(suggest your own method here

















Responsible landowners and chance discoverers of artefacts frequently DO report them as they are obliged by the law. You're talking about deliberately setting out to find stuff that lies undisturbed and secure - to be found by whatever activity takes place that will turn it up in the future - and with modern legislation may well be found by an archaeologist prior to a developer.

So, over the years, thousands of minimally interesting, financially reasonably worthless, individual 2000 year old copper alloy brooches across the country would be robbed from their contexts, stuffed in a museum with no additional knowledge gained - saving perhaps their location.

There will be NO excavation of the features that they were found in, NO knowledge of the site they came from and NO secure radiocarbon date that narrows the date range of such artefacts. Following that, in another few years perhaps when things pick up economically, there will be some developer who wants to turn that particular field into a suburban estate. The archaeologists will be called in as part of the planning legislation, the site will be found by them ... and will be found to be riddled with holes and pits dug by metal detectorists that contaminate the available information.

When that excavation is written up in a local historical journal, local people will be p[ssed off that their heritage was ransacked by some dude who fancied a trinket for the cabinet, or (presuming better intentions) his picture in the local paper holding up a small brasso-scrubbed piece of bronze, shining for all to see - for a day, before being packed away in a box in a store-room.

Having trained people to excavate for over a decade I can tell you that it doesn't take a short amount of time to learn and understand the processes involved in getting every piece of information available from even the simplest of objects - metal or not - and having worked alongside people in the construction industry and farmers alike, people have a funny idea about how things get in the ground in the first place. I like to try and change that.

It is likely that most people's understanding about the context of an artefact is a misunderstanding. By robbing the small glittery pieces from a site with a metal detector you are smashing up a stained glass window to take home the picture.



We look for it only when it is at risk of being destroyed by a development or some other destructive practice, so that as much information as exists is recorded prior to development taking place. The developer pays for this (as "the polluter" as part of planning legislation) so the tax payer doesn't have to.

Another misapprehension - professionals who can "take over"? Except in a historic handful of cases (when something interesting enough for the small National Museum staff to have a day out to excavate) there is no money to pay for an excavation where there is no intention to build something... so the site will remain as it was.. except for the large holes dug by the disappointed treasure hunters and the missing pieces of the puzzle that are either in the National Museum, or are in someone's third drawer down with the golf balls and Aunty Mary's false teeth.

Perhaps you should try and understand what's involve[d in protecting the heritage of this country before you try and revise the legislation? If you were truly interested you might join a local archaeology group.