We recently managed to shame the country’s largest metal detecting shop, Regtons, into stopping selling night vision gear. It was a victory for conservation (which PAS and The Archaeological Establishment should have secured, not us) but it was only a small one, for two reasons:
First, Regtons may have desisted but lots of other detecting outlets haven’t. Just look at all the “Night Owl” gear that Joan Allen Detectors will deliver to you on a next day basis. It is difficult to believe that detector shops that sell items that nighthawks find useful are unaware of precisely what they are contributing to. What do you think?
Second, as we’ve said so often, the debate about whether nighthawks are a tiny minority or not is a damaging distraction for it diverts the public’s attention from the real scandal – that the knowledge theft that nighthawks cause is dwarfed by the knowledge theft perpetrated by the far more numerous non-reporting legal detectorists. One day no doubt Posterity will judge today’s archaeologists harshly for not shouting that simple truth from the roof tops and particularly in the corridors of Whitehall and Westminster. The fundamental reality of the British portable antiquities policy is that non-regulation of “legal” detecting causes far more heritage damage than flogging night vision equipment to criminals. It’s not a great charge to lay at the door of British Archaeology but there it is.
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Aunt Bella’s School for Nearsighted Young Women and British Archaeologists. Missing the bleeding obvious.
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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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10 comments
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02/03/2015 at 10:35
Peter
In the news
Video: UEA archaeology student unearths Anglo-Saxon pendant worth an estimated £50000
Norfolk Eastern Daily Press – 2 days ago
It was a discovery most archaeologists could only dream of making once in their career.
Anglo-Saxon pendant: Norfolk student makes ‘royal’ find
BBC News – 2 days ago
More news for student unearths anglo saxon pendant
02/03/2015 at 10:36
Peter
Eat your hearts out ..
14/03/2015 at 11:04
M9G
To be fair detectorist go out on their permissions late evenings and sometimes at night legally, Regtons are not aiming directly at nighthawkers, they would certainly not encourage illegal detecting, thats obvious. Nighthawking isnt just at night and its only a very small minority that do it, Nighthawkers do it more for finacial gain whereas the majority of detectorists do it for the hobby, the buzz and to save our history. Archi’s rely on detectorist to save the majority of our history, look at all the recorded finds and hoards that have been found and appreciated that would not have been found by archi’s. It is disappointing that all detectorist are frowned apon and categorized into treasure hunters and do it for the financial gain. To finish off, if a nighthawker wants a set of night vision goggles they can easily purchase from many non-detectorist shops and websites
14/03/2015 at 11:44
Mr K Jones
The biggest crooks in this lovely hobby are the British Museum and Timeline Auctions, for all the bad that gets published about Detectorists let’s not forget the Hoards of Lovely coins and artifacts that have been discovered that are on view in museums around the country for us all to view , in every walk of like there are good and bad people that will include archaeologist and detectorists ! Unfortunatly it’s the Detectorists that are always branded the bad guys !
14/03/2015 at 14:13
Tim
“they would certainly not encourage illegal detecting”
Clearly they realised that’s exactly what they were doing which is why they stopped selling the goods.
14/03/2015 at 15:19
Jackmar 1959
“in every walk of like there are good and bad people that will include archaeologist and detectorists !”
Yawn. Just report all your recordable finds, all of you, not one in 4 of you. It’s not bloody rocket science. Jeeze. How many more years will it take to get it through your thick skulls?
22/03/2015 at 10:00
ahbugger
theft that nighthawks cause is dwarfed by the knowledge theft perpetrated by the far more numerous non-reporting legal detectorists
…for which you seem to entirely blame archaeologists and the ‘archaeological establishment’ (whatever that is). Are people no longer responsible for their own actions/inactions?
22/03/2015 at 11:39
heritageaction
Indeed they are. The trouble is, reporting has been left as a voluntary matter and the result has been that most detectorists choose not to report all their finds, i.e. to steal everyone’s knowledge. There’s no point criticising them, they are selfish idiots. The only useful blame has to be directed at archaeologists for not pressing the government to legislate – like every civilised and uncivilised country has!
22/03/2015 at 12:50
ahbugger
I think you may be overestimating our leverage. There are about five thousand of us all told, mostly working in the commercial sector. The entire field is chronically underfunded and there is very much a feeling of scrabbling around trying to do a lot with a little.
Speaking personally I am concerned about the same aspects of metal detecting you are. But I’m also concerned about developers not following archaeological WSIs, unauthorised works on ancient monuents, landowners damaging monuments to reduce the amount of work required, budgets limiting excavations and archaeological potential being underestimated or even written off at the planning stage.
I may be misinterpreting what you’re saying but it sounds as though you agree that irresponsible detectorists are the ones who are actually at fault but that by shifting the blame to archaeologists you may persuade them to sucessfully lobby for legislation to tackle this?
If so I’m afraid it’s a little way down the list. There are things within our own industry that we need to get sorted first before we start trying to change what people outside of it do. Perhaps in the meantime it would be more constructive to lay the blame where we apparently both agree it lies?
22/03/2015 at 13:30
heritageaction
Well, as I said above, the actual blame is indeed owed to the “selfish idiots”. IMO the country is inured to the fact that after donkeys years most of a specific group offered freedom under a social contract and expensively and falsely flattered, mostly stick two fingers up when it comes to paying the community back. What other group would act in such a fashion? I can’t think of one.
Yes I know it’s low on the archaeo wish-list, probably with justification, but it’s a corner I’ve been fighting in daily since 2000 and it’s a worthwile one. Also, it’s no big deal for archaeologists – admitting that all the praise by PAS and successive Culture Secretaries are false pictures of a minority in the hobby and as such leave the bad stuff immune from pressure is something they COULD do, en masse. Christ, the evidence is overwhelming and if archaeologists simply said so something would surely have been done years ago. We’re not asking for banning or the death penalty, just licensing so that an ignored moral imperative can be labelled a legal one. A bit like yellow lines. Laws work, and the only people that say they won’t in the case of metal detecting are people who don’t report finds. Moral pygmies, in other words!