A new code of conduct has been published. The good news is that this time only those who have the welfare of archaeology in mind have drafted it. A pretty obvious arrangement you might think. After all, the Trump boys weren’t invited to make the rules on big game hunting.
But it’s not something that was recognised as sensible in Britain until now. So could this herald a fundamental change in stewardship of the buried archaeological resource? Might the next step be something that’s been equally overdue: a letter from archaeologists to farmers explaining the realities of detecting without it being submitted for detectorists to edit, as previously demanded by the National Council?
Could it be that the elephant has finally been thrown out of the room and off the backs of heritage professionals?
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“Do we do what’s right for the resource (as requested for many years by Barford and Swift), or do we sell it down the river at the behest of Jumbo here?”
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The Heritage Journal 
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04/02/2018 at 13:15
Paul Barford
The problem is that the Code is only a rewrite of the existing one and does not take into account many aspects of what ‘best practice’ would actually be if the document had been sent out for wider consultation before it was published. What about for example targeting known sites? What about targeting known former Treasure findspots in the hope of garnering a cash reward? Is that ‘good practice’, let alone ‘best’?