People often ask why we’re so strongly opposed to laissez faire artefact hunting, especially rallies. It’s evidence and logic mostly, but sometimes it’s emotion.  Here’s our article from ten years ago about a full frontal assault on our beloved Avebury:

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ten years ago.

Unfortunately little has changed since then and in the subsequent ten years there have been many more rallies and club digs near Avebury and about 30,000 more nationally. Since PAS says most metal detecting finds aren’t reported the information loss from those rallies has to have been vast. The most PAS can bring itself to say is that they “aren’t fans” of big rallies whereas what they mean is they oppose them. Of course they do, they conflict with all notions of conservation good sense and public morality worldwide.

How much longer will it be before educated Britain is told exactly that by officialdom? Will we have another ten years in which they continue to be presented with a false picture, as typified by this soothing but wildly inaccurate claim by an academic at the UCL Institute of Archaeology: “metal detecting without reporting finds is nearly as reprehensible and harmful to heritage as excavating without publishing. Fortunately the Portable Antiquities Scheme and its hard-earned relationship with the metal detecting community offers a practical, pragmatic and proven solution to this problem“ Reprehensible and harmful but fortunately solved by the existence of PAS? Hardly. He really should go to a rally, preferably near Avebury or indeed at any of the unprotected archaeological sites that are invariably targeted by rally organisers (as they can make more money that way), or familiarise himself with the rules of detecting clubs, almost none of which make reporting obligatory (why???) or simplest of all, talk to a PAS staff member in private.

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting

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