Faced with wrongdoing by colleagues, detectorists often use the “Not Me” defence. Fair enough if true but not if not. For example, we recently cited a detectorist (“Mr A***r”) saying he doesn’t report all finds to PAS and is threatening to not report Treasure – whereupon the Chairman of his previous club left a “Not Me” comment saying they had ejected him for misbehaviour.
But since we replied as follows he has fallen silent: “Thanks. I take it your club’s mandatory code of conduct is the official one? It could hardly be otherwise as if your members aren’t bound by that you’d have no way of knowing or insisting that they recorded all their finds with PAS – in other words, that they are any better than Mr A***r.” The problem is that, incredibly, despite masses of virtuous talk, hardly any detecting clubs insist on members keeping to the official code or reporting all finds to PAS ! That’s why “Not Me” is an uncomfortable defence.
Luckily for them though this is Bonkers Britain so despite saying that keeping to the official code is the only acceptable way to conduct the hobby, neither the Government nor PAS say a word about the fact the detecting clubs don’t make it a condition of membership. In addition, in the academic corner of Bonkers Britain there’s no comment about it either. Indeed, sometimes things are said there that beggar belief:
A recent statement by an academic (about artefact hunting abroad): Archaeology is “inherently (neo)colonialist, in denial of its own criminogenic creations and, therefore, eventually and essentially state-corporate crime enhancing”. So the massive loss of cultural knowledge isn’t the fault of non-reporting artefact hunters, the poor innocent puppies, they are simply “the criminogenic creations” of Archaeology. Bloody archaeologists!
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[“When are you going to stop banging on about the same thing week after week, who the hell do you think you are?” writes a detectorist yesterday. To which we’d reply: the day after you all stop stealing the public’s knowledge – who the hell do you think YOU are?]
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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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The Heritage Journal 
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
30/11/2014 at 09:41
heritageaction
“Peter”, this is a conservation site and unless you’re committed to legal regulation of metal detecting in the public interest there’s no place for you here.
Nor is there a place for a succession of simplistic and irrelevant statements about you all being “citizen archaeologists” and the Detectorists TV programme being more popular than Time Team and cases of archaeologists being caught stealing artefacts. Save it for the places where they ARE considered relevant. We aren’t interested.
30/11/2014 at 19:46
Peter
Your quite right re the-succession of simplistic and irrelevant statements you should really stop making them , I’m eagerly awaiting the latest case of misappropriation of museam property and auctioning of publicly donated items, which will be a revaluation ,I will make sure every one hears about it .
01/12/2014 at 12:18
Paul Barford
In terms of what is relevant to a conservation website, I really see nothing “irrelevant” here. In what way is it “simplistic” to want to see better conservation of the record of the past? The only thing that complicates matters is selfish takers who want to thieve it all away to their personal collections without telling anyone what they’ve got, where it is from and what they threw away. There is nothing either “simplistic” or “irrelevant” in HA saying that is wrong – and why.
Now if we are looking for simplistic and irrelevant statements, I think we may look no further than a metal detectorist “threatening” that he will make sure that everyone hears about “the latest case of misappropriation of museam property and auctioning of publicly donated items, which will be a revaluation”. Firstly, don’t trust your spell checker to understand what you meant, secondly, please do shout it from the rooftops, we need to dissuade museums from doing this.
Thirdly, however, that is a bit rich from a hobby which comprises the massive removal of stuff from the archaeological record which not only never gets into the public record, but the vast majority of which does not get into public collections, but is secreted away or flogged off.
02/12/2014 at 10:05
Edwin
Funny item on Fake Britain this morning. Fake metal detectors being sold to the hobbyists. Hope the looters buy them.