BBC: Metal detecting 'helping to preserve Britain's history'

.
I mentioned this the other day, now somebody has sent me a link (sadly not embeddable) to the BBC's Jenny Hill reporting (video).

"Metal detecting used to be seen as a slightly eccentric pastime but high-profile discoveries of long-lost treasure are giving it a new image. The amateur archaeologists are gaining respect as they are credited with playing an increasingly important role in helping us learn about the UK's past".

Well, how they are actually depicted as doing so is by emptying the archaeolocial record of its artefacts, and even getting their kids along to help. In the programme is featured Frank Andrusyk of the Central Yorkshire Metal Detecting Club (NB, no mention of the Code of Practice). There is mention of the Staffordshire Hoard (de rigeur these days), "a high profile discovery which boosted interest in the pastime". There is mention of an "official database' amateur archaeologists' finds can be recorded on - with 90 000 added last year - but nowhere do we learn its name, the bloke that represents it in the film is given the label "British Museum". So we see the mess on Michael Lewis' desk in the BM (and the national flag in the corner) as he gives a few glib soundbites about how metal detectorists are "not in it for the money". You may notice Bloomsbury Pete the heritage conscious pigeon in the background trying to listen in at the window so he can do the PAS' outreach for it next time a question too difficult for them to answer is asked (so that's about most questions innit?).

Apparently "a lot of people that go out metal detecting have a real genuine interest in the past" which somehow for the "British Museum" makes it all OK I guess. [People who shoot deer in the forests in Poland near me also say they are really interested in 'looking after' the deer, which is why they put out water troughs for them just in front of their hides, and when they come to drink... It's all legal].

Cut back to Frank-with-a-Slavic-Surname up in Yorkshire who explains that

"the people who just walk away with the items, it's such a shame, just such a shame. The true meaning of the metal detecting, from an 'istorical perspective is the, erm.. looking and searching for the information that those items contain".

At the end of the film the journalist stresses "for them its not about the monetary value of the find, the real treasure that lies beneath the earth here is what it can tell them about the past".

Well, I think we are not really much further on in the debate than in the mid 1970s when metal detector owners insisted on people stop using the term "Treasure hunters" and call them "metal detectorists", far more anorakish ("Metal detecting ... slightly eccentric pastime. - deliberate camoflage you see? They do not like it when you call a spade a spade and refer to them as "artefact hunters"). So now they apparently want us to call them "amateur archaeologists". Both the BBC and the British Museum jumble-desk-guy keep trying to convince us they are "not in it for the money" (now what was it that Terry Herbert the finder of the Staffordshire Hoards featured in the film told us he used to say when out detecting? Remind us please Mr Lewis)

Secondly we are not getting anywhere near getting that idea across about archaeological context are we? There is this database you see, and lots of finds get put on it. But the "find" is not the point of the database, EBay's got lots of finds on it. The database is there to make a permanent record of findspots of items that get - as Frank says "taken away, such a shame, such a shame". But Frank's appearance here is less than stellar as archaeological outreach ... what does he say? He says what is lost when things are taken away (from sites he's interested in?) is NOT the findspot information at all, but "the information that those items contain". In other words, he sees archaeological finds no differently from the US heaps-of-coins-don't-care-where-they-come-from-as-long-as-they-are-on-my-table collectors who claim to be able to write all of human history from fondling a pile of ancient pictured discs of metal. So-called "metal detecting" is of course exactly the same kind of collecting, except these collectors hoik their own collectables from the soil and discard what they do not want, while the coineys across the Atlantic pay somebody else to do it (and pay somebody else to break the law to get it to them if necessary). When it comes down to it, and no matter what people in the PAS or anywhere else in Bloomsbury say, the two are manifestations of exactly the same hobby, all part of the same problem.

Not that the BBC would notice. But - and here's the question Heritage Action asked - who is telling them otherwise?

Heritage Action Asks: Who Misleads the BBC?

.
Heritage Action has an article about something I mentioned here earlier. It's called: BBC misleads viewers – but who misled the BBC? Just what message are the British public getting about archaeology these days due to the kind of "outreach" being done by the discipline? There is more and more evidence that archaeology is becoming seen by the main stakeholder in the archaeological heritage only as the hunt for glittery geegaws which "tell a story" which can be done by an ordinary bloke with a metal detector and a spade and a good place to look. I am sure this will have unfortunate long term consequences for the discipline. The author of the HA piece quite rightly points out the vast differences there are between archaeology and collecting artefacts, a distinction that seems no longer one archaeologists themselves feel free to talk about over there (or maybe for British archaeologists these days there really is NO difference?).

We’ll send [the BBC] this article and explain to them that the documenting and collecting of things from the past for their own sake is not archaeology, amateur or otherwise, but antiquitism. Let’s see if they desist from tarnishing the good name of tens of thousands of genuine, selfless amateur archaeologists – or if someone has a quiet word asking them to carry on.

Preservation the Concern of "Snobs"?

.
Peter Tompa reckons that:

we should all be happy that PAS and the Treasure Act have encouraged the general public to help the archaeological community record the past in England and Wales.

But what about preserving the remains of the past in a more holistic sense? Yes, the Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme get records made of shiny (or not so shiny) "bits of the past", but at what cost? What is lost along the way? Tompa seems not to want to admit that these geegaws are ripped from the archaeological record, and what is "recorded" is just the tip of the iceberg, that which is lost is immeasurably greater. So what is it "for"? Who should be happy about what precisely? And who is this "we"?

Tompa reckons it is not true that the PAS "look wotta lotta stuff" figures being quoted on the front page of their website do not contain the CCI and IARCW and Frome Hoard data. But they quite clearly do. But people like Tompa are not going to listen to reason, they "know what they know" and that is that the PAS is the best thing for collectors since sliced bread. It however does not need a "snob" to ask to what degree current UK policies (here I included Scotland) are indeed the best thing for the archaeological record. Is archaeology really just about "Treasure" hunting?

So if American lawyers and others are "happy" that the Brits are "recording their past" what about creating the opportunity for American members of the public to do it too by setting up a Portable Antiquities Scheme in the USA and Canada? Plenty of artefacts over there, plenty of artefact hunters digging them up and collecting them away. Why is there no 'PAS of America' gathering that information if its such a good thing when others do it? What about US "collectors' rights" to be able to make a contribution? When are we going to see the "collectors' rights" advocates actually putting their money where their mouths are and pushing for one in their own country?

Vignette: green eco-snobs

"Britain: An Amateur Treasure-Seeker's Paradise": Metal Detecting Holiday Bookings Up.

.
PAS has outshone itself. Google searching for the text "Britain: An Amateur Treasure-Seeker's Paradise" (with inverted commas) produces 179 links and texts hosted on sites like Yahoo, MSN, various Reuters offshoots, India Times, coiney newsfeeds, metal detecting webpages, and I even spotted a link apparently on an 'UK Erotica & Sex News' page.

Meanwhile searching for any text at all on the topic of "Britain: Archaeological preservation" (with inverted commas) produced eleven. So about the ratio you'd expect then. Shiny Stuff Sets the Agenda.

I expect metal detecting holiday bookings will be up this summer.

Disgraceful. This is supposed to be "archaeological outreach"? This is the kind of damaging "outreach" the discipline can well do without. What went wrong? What are these people thinking?

PASing Around with the "Numbers": A Week in the Record

.
The country I live in used to have a government that loved statistics. Every year wheat and sugar beet production was up, the number of new houses built was up,, production of tractors and cars was up. Over in the "rotten west" the only thing that the newspapers told us was going up was the number of unemployed and alcoholics, and the number of people shot in the streets by gangsters or killed in some catastrophe or other. Listening to the state media (the only media), one could believe one lived in a paradise on earth, except there were food shortages in the shops, there was a waiting list for new cars and somehow those new houses and flats seemed not to have been built in the citizen's own town. We lived in a world of statistical myth. Knowing that, nobody listened to the numbers and dismissed the claims that things were improving as propaganda. Which is a pity, because although life was bad (really bad) for most of us, things were happening which were to have great significance when the country threw out those communists and began to live under a new system. Many other nations in the post-Soviet Bloc countries found themselves with a far worse social and economic infrastructure with the results we see.

Like the countries of eastern Europe before 1989, the PAS loves broadcasting its propaganda of success. From press releases and conference programmes it can be seen that it knows no other type. The PAS webpage gives a running account of how the numbers keep getting bigger and bigger. So yesterday during the launch of the 2008 report, instead of hearing about them, we heard of the bigger numbers achieved two years later in 2010. We were treated to effusive accounts of how well "the numbers" show the PAS is doing in its struggle to inform citizens about the wealth of archaeological treasures that lies beneath their feet just waiting for them to "have a go" themselves at digging them up and showcase them on the PAS database. Now the whole world and its aunt is learning that the British Museum reports a large increase in archaeological finds found by the public and that "archaeological finds are up by 36%". Yesterday this "massive increase in archaeological finds found by the public" was being trumpeted around the press. The figures for 2010 were 139502 records referring to 233273 objects recorded through the PAS. In addition it was announced yesterday that in 2010, there were " 859 Treasure cases, up 10%":

the British Museum manages the PAS, and also administers the Treasure Act (sic) 1996. This increase in finds is mostly due to a rebuild of the PAS finds database in early 2010, which has made it easier to use for recorders and the public, and interns employed to record finds, generously funded by the Headley Trust and Institute for Archaeologists.

Well, that is not the whole truth is it? Let's have a look at those statistics for 2010, using the search the database facilities of the PAS. I have no special access to PAS records, I see as much as the average member of public who pays for the Scheme, so readers - and culture ministers - can check this out themselves from the 'statistics' sidebar in the database, the rest is very user-friendly so even metal detectorists can use it.

Using this facility to look at the 2010 Average per month records we get these results:

Month	Objects	Records
January	12277	4289
February	5584	3509
March	95560	93774
April	57874	4183
May	5258	3948
June	14509	4476
July	5506	4574
August	11299	3459
September	4688	3844
October	6445	4641
November	9017	5062
December	5256	3743
	233273	139502

Well, first of all let us look at that massive total, c. 139500 records (referring to 233200 objects) - wow, eh? The figures for 2009 are 39874 records (mentioning 67074 objects), so that is a big increase...

Looking in more detail however we can see that the monthly recording figures for 2010 are indeed a little up on the corresponding values for 2009. But there is one highly significant anomaly. March 2010 (March 22nd 2010 in particular) is interesting. On one day there was a huge leap in the numbers. In fact a huge leap which is largely responsible for the increase reported for the whole of 2010. Let us take a look at the PAS recording going on that third week in March 2010 using the PAS database search facility. Have a look at this: Statistical analysis of the database for Friday 19th March 2010 until Saturday 27th March 2010

Number of records: 91388 (Number of objects to which they refer: 92140 - an uncharacteristically low ratio this week, see why below)

Number due to Responsible Metal Detectorists reporting their Finds:
14118 records overall (15.4%) referring to 14864 objects.

Quantities recorded per Officer and assistants:
Only 36 FLOs recorded anything at all during that week (most recorded between 3 and 40 objects - average 17.1) That is 645 records referring to 1397 objects
Hero recorders that week:
Adam Daubney (Lincoln): submitted 66 records referring to 101 objects
Andrew Brown (Suffolk): submitted 58 records of 58 finds
and Ciorstaidh Hayward Trevarthen (Dorset) boosting the "number of objects" statistics with just one record, but referring to 662 objects.

What is significant in the records made in that week is that two additional bodies of data are present:
Peter Guest (not a PAS employee) submitted 52,812 records (listed as referring to 52812 objects) inserted from Cardiff University's Iron Age and Roman Coins of Wales project database.
and Celtic Coin Index (not a PAS employee) submitted 37,931 records (also listed as containing records of the same number of objects) inserted from Oxford University's Celtic Coin Index database.

So of March 2010's total of 93,774 records 90,743 are from these two extraneous (and independently funded and operated) sources alone added to the PAS database on March 22nd. That means only 3031 objects were recorded from outreach to both metal detectorists and non metal detecting members of the public that month (about seventy per FLO per month). It also means that c. 91,000 records of the total of 139,502 quoted for 2010 are in fact inserted from these other sources, and therefore only 48,759 come from the outreach work of the FLOs. So in 2010 there were just 8885 more records created on the PAS database as a result of outreach among the public in 2010 by the PAS than in 2009. That is not an increase of "36%" is it?

This alleged "36%" increase in statistics about PAS outreach has however been lauded by metal detecting Minister Ed Vaisey and others as showing the contribution of artefact hunting to the work of the PAS - which in turn shows how it is "working". But let us look at the actual date of finding of the objects entered onto the PAS database from those two external sources and now being included in the PAS statistics for 2010 (again from the PAS database). The source is the same statistical analysis of the database for Friday 19th March 2010 until Saturday 27th March 2010: Let us see how many of those data counted as "finds recording in 2010" come from finds made in and around 2010, or even in the same decade or century:

Year of discovery Year Objects Records No year recorded 64296 64244 year zer0 5945 5945 1720 3 3 1736 1 1 1746 1 1 1749 19 19 1750 1 1 1761 1 1 1762 5 5 1764 1 1 1775 1 1 1781 3 3 1786 1 1 1788 1 1 1796 1 1 1800 11 11 1801 1 1 1803 6 6 1805 1 1 1806 2 2 1813 1 1 1816 1 1 1821 1 1 1824 1 1 1825 9 9 1827 22 22 1829 21 21 1830 17 17 1832 6 6 1835 2 2 1836 1 1 1837 3 3 1838 9 9 1839 2 2 1840 9 9 1841 4 4 1842 19 19 1843 7 7 1844 4 4 1845 2 2 1846 1 1 1847 5 5 1848 31 31 1849 65 65 1850 5 5 1851 5 5 1852 1 1 1853 86 86 1854 11 11 1855 7 7 1856 5 5 1857 12 12 1858 5 5 1859 8 8 1860 167 167 1861 3 3 1862 9 9 1863 6 6 1864 60 60 1865 9 9 1866 6 6 1867 17 17 1868 7 7 1869 17 17 1870 18 18 1871 6 6 1872 5 5 1873 59 59 1874 4 4 1875 18 18 1876 4 4 1877 7 7 1878 99 99 1879 6 6 1880 29 29 1881 5 5 1882 11 11 1883 4 4 1884 3 3 1885 2 2 1886 5 5 1887 8 8 1888 14 14 1889 21 21 1890 30 30 1891 10 10 1892 32 32 1893 15 15 1894 5 5 1895 14 14 1896 7 7 1897 2 2 1898 115 115 1899 9 9 1900 22 22 1901 5 5 1902 6 6 1903 15 15 1904 33 33 1905 611 611 1906 4 4 1907 53 53 1908 118 118 1909 6 6 1910 6 6 1911 331 331 1912 31 31 1913 76 76 1914 21 21 1915 8 8 1916 5 5 1917 8 8 1918 18 18 1919 132 132 1920 9 9 1921 3 3 1922 4 4 1923 7 7 1924 14 14 1925 14 14 1926 4 4 1927 69 69 1928 14 14 1929 6 6 1930 34 34 1931 46 46 1932 30 30 1933 8 8 1934 35 35 1935 42 42 1936 16 16 1937 23 23 1938 16 16 1939 15 15 1940 12 12 1941 6 6 1942 3 3 1943 2 2 1944 2 2 1945 3 3 1946 3 3 1947 4 4 1948 122 122 1949 6 6 1950 17 17 1951 5 5 1952 12 12 1953 10 10 1954 40 40 1955 30 30 1956 9 9 1957 25 25 1958 23 23 1959 14 14 1960 69 69 1961 26 26 1962 56 56 1963 51 51 1964 35 35 1965 68 68 1966 110 110 1967 111 111 1968 84 84 1969 38 38 1970 150 150 1971 99 99 1972 183 183 1973 127 127 1974 33 33 1975 43 43 1976 209 209 1977 283 283 1978 128 128 1979 146 146 1980 131 131 1981 122 122 1982 267 267 1983 274 274 1984 464 464 1985 862 862 1986 455 455 1987 869 869 1988 255 255 1989 199 199 1990 386 386 1991 300 300 1992 602 602 1993 426 426 1994 828 828 1995 658 658 1996 330 330 1997 129 129 1998 90 90 1999 336 336 2000 398 398 2001 286 286 2002 463 463 2003 489 489 2004 254 254 2005 35 35 2006 34 34 2007 4 4 2008 23 22 2009 194 182 2010 6105 5418 92140 91388

Of the actual total of records on the PAS database made in that week for 2010 as we have seen, at a maximum 645 were records (referring to 1397 objects) created by the FLOs as a result of the PAS' public outreach. The rest seem clearly to be inserted data from these two other external and independent sources.

The CCI and IARCW data are also responsible for a large peak in the number of findspots recorded in March 2010 with 8 figure National Grid References (888) and 10 figure one (52870). Normally PAS data do not contain as many records of findspot location with such precision.

I think the figures speak for themselves. Far from the figures indicating that in 2010, 36% more members of the public (including metal detectorists) came forward with finds they had recently made is an illusion. What is happening instead is that in 2010 the PAS gained access to data compiled by others quite unrelated to the Scheme, some of it recorded nearly 300 years ago and it is these data which are being presented on the PAS webpage as part of its own "achievement" in recording finds. This is at best misleading, but - given the fact that there is not a word of this in the BM press release, as reported on the Scheme's own website - could also be construed as dishonest.

It might be suggested that it is legitimate to count these figures in the PAS database as they are date about "finds made by the public" - which is what, in broad terms, the PAS database records. This is false on two counts. Firstly the CCI and IARCW databases both contained considerable numbers of records of finds made during archaeological excavations and archaeological surveys. They were both funded by outside sources as academic research projects, not public outreach. Secondly, and more importantly, both of them already existed in the form of standalone databases, and could comfortably have continued to do so. Incorporating them in the PAS database is unnecessary and seems primarily an idea seized upon cynically to bump up the Scheme's statistics to make it look as if - in its outreach to members of the public, and the "metal-detecting" community in particular, the PAS is "working" much better than it actually is.

I really do not see the need for this subterfuge (for there really can be no other name for it). In fact it hides the real achievement of the Scheme which has been a genuine rise in the number of records being made by genuine outreach. I think this is largely due to the reconstruction of the database which streamlines the manner in which FLOs enter these data and is enabling them to get through their recording backlog more rapidly. The PAS can tell us themselves the percentage I am sure. The question is however, given their propensity for 'spinning' their statistics in a form which both flatters and defends their metal-detectorist-partners instead of in a form which gives realistic basis for assessment of policy effectiveness, whether anyone apart from DCMS ministers and superficial journalists are really interested in listening to their "look how well we are doing!" bleating any more.

Vignette: Polish propaganda poster from the Old Days: "Better results from working together", might be a good slogan for the PAS .

Britain: "An Amateur Treasure-Seeker's Paradise"

.
Britain, due to lax legislation is now considered an amateur treasure-seeker's paradise where, according to Stefano Ambrogi of Reuters reporting on another PAS boastfest ('Britain: An amateur treasure-seeker's paradise', May 25th 2011) "unusually, government and museums approve detection and digging by general public" and "detector enthusiasts [...] are able to keep their haul":

Britain is bursting with ancient buried treasure and the masses have been bitten by the bug for digging it up — ironically with the full approval of the government and leading museums. Latest figures released by the British Museum on Wednesday showed a "massive" jump in the number of antiquities and spectacular objects classed as treasure being found by ordinary citizens with a passion for history.

"Highlights displayed at the British Museum" include "a stash of late Iron Age solid gold coins, called "staters," dating from 15 to 20 AD" (that would be the Wickham Market hoard where limited excavations - I think as yet unpublished - failed to reveal much about its burial context). "Of equal importance" (for whom?) "is a unique Roman knife handle depicting a perverted erotic scene involving two males and a female with one of the figures clutching a decapitated head. Only a handful of erotic knife handle designs have ever been found in Britain".

Apparently we are to rejoice that "In 2010, over 90,000 archaeological objects were reported to museums across the country — a 36 percent rise on 2009 — through what is known as the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS)". Well, were they? Is that REALLY what that figure of 90 000 represents? Who says so? Where is the Celtic Coin Index and the Roman Coins of Wales database? What about the Norfolk paper records entered by interns? All these contain information coming from PREVIOUS years, and not 2010 alone, don't they? In the case of the CCI some data going back to the eighteenth century well before electronic metal detectors (well before electricity in fact).

According to the article (is this based on a PAS press release?) the reason why so-called "detector enthusiasts" (why not call them what they are - artefact hunters?) were "derided by archaeologists in the past for their unscientific practices". That rather skips over what is meant by "unscientific", it is not whether they use more sophisticated (depth advantage and discriminating) electronic tools for "detecting" metal collectables, but the fact that the archaeological record is being actively mined as a source of collectables in Britain. That is what the problem is, sites and assemblages are being ripped apart and plundered for collectable geegaws, and all the public is told by an appreciative press is that we've an erotic knife handle and to a set of post-medieval false teeth to show for it. And tens of thousands of utterly trashed archaeological sites.

Along comes Michael Lewis to announce that the scheme differed markedly from the way in which excavation is regulated in the rest of Europe

which he said was "draconian" by comparison.

"Draconian" is the sort of word used by dealers and collectors. The likes of Wayne Sayles and Dave Welsh of the ACCG, William Pearlstein of the ACCP. The ACCG certainly thinks the PAS is on their side. Expressions of disdain for measures proposed by other countries in an effort to protect their archaeological sites from being trashed by artefact hunters and collectors being expressed by the PAS certainly do nothing to dispel this impression. After all as we all know, Roger Bland was a willing recipient of the ACCG "Friends of Numismatics" award.

Those so-called "draconian laws" mean that it is illegal to trash sites and treat them as geegaw mines in most other countries of the world (including on public lands in the USA). I really do not see that Britain has anything to be proud of that it is not in England, Wales and Scotland.

Here's some holes dug by artefact hunters at Wanborough and an excavation of a site after the artefact hunters have been there - do artefact hunters no longer damage sites now Britain has a PAS?

That's like making a virtue of the fact that a country may have (for example) limited anti-rape laws. Fine for male perverts, less so for the women who live there. Britain's legislation is fine for the artefact collector, ideal for the dealer (as long as its not for export) and as we have seen now widely regarded as a 'paradise' for treasure seekers. But its not protecting the archaeology. Filling museum cases with pretty dugup and ripped off geegaws is what nineteenth century antiquaries used to do. Elgin, Layard, Botta and Belzoni for example. But it is not "doing archaeology". It is not protecting sites. Paying for upwards of 800 "Treasures" unnecessarily ripped to a great degree from their (unknown because nobody investigates most of the sites) context of deposition well below plough level on otherwise unthreatened sites loudly applauded by all is costing millions yearly. I really cannot see why Lewis thinks this is anything for the Brits to boast about. What on earth do British archaeologists think they are doing just passively watching on as this sort of thing goes on?

Lauding the scheme Vaizey said: It really is incredibly effective...and it works."

Well, only until you stop parroting what you got on the self-gratulatory press release and start asking other questions. What it is actually doing is providing a platform legitimising artefact hunting, looting, and collecting as well as the antiquity trade. It is not actually mitigating the losses to the British archaeological record to any satisfactory degree, because the token big numbers do not look so impressive when you try to examine the evidence for the overall losses. The PAS (including the publicity given to events such as this) seems actually to be directly responsible for an increase in the number of people taking up this erosive and destructive hobby in Britain. It is also actively eroding public perceptions of the aims and purposes (and methods of) archaeology [and that's worldwide]. In actual fact, closer familiarity with what "metal detectorists" are up to behind the scenes (try looking in on the closed sections of their forums Mr Vaisey) reveal as clear as can be that the PAS is failing to instil "best practice" to any significant degree - and yet that was one of the government's primary aims in setting it up. In fact the PAS seems woefully unaware of the need to do anything about recent developments. Neither - most significantly in my opinion - is it providing any kind of a forum for discussion of the issues surrounding artefact hunting, collecting and the trade (licit and illicit) within archaeology, nor as archaeological "outreach" (ha ha - hollow laugh) to the general - non-collecting - public. A task for which the PAS is showing progressively less interest. I really do not see that there are grounds for the Minister's jubilation that it "works" - did they serve wine at the launch?

Where is the CBA? Where is the IFA? Where is APPAG? Where are RESCUE and The Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers? What is going on? [I can't find my Mad Hatter's Teaparty "doormouse into the teapot" vignette: I'll use this instead]
.
Thanks to Nigel Swift for putting arrows on my map, it seems to present the central dilemma so well that I decided to use it twice. How on earth can anyone in their right mind say the PAS is "working" faced with something as graphic as that? Beats me. Cue more attacks on the Heritage Action Artefact Erosion Counter I guess...

From Cockspur Street to Coventry: What the British DCMS does not Want you to Think About

.
British Culture Minister Vaisey appears terribly impressed that the PAS now has more and more objects in its database and apparently expects us to be too. Indeed the "dadah!" self-advertising toolbar on the PAS website excitedly announces today:

443,102 records * 700,306 objects * 19,053 people involved * 2,986 accounts

There is a problem in getting very excited about these figures, and that is a worrying little thing called the Heritage Action Artefact Erosion Counter. Never mind the vast number of finds that are accidentally being made by ordinary members of the public and not being reported, many many more are being found and deliberately dug up by artefact hunters for personal (private) collection and sale. The HAAEC purports to be a

running total of the number of recordable archaeological artefacts removed from the fields of England and Wales by metal detectorists (mostly without being reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme).

Today: 43
This year:114,883
Since the start of the Portable Antiquities Scheme: 4,196,418
Overall Total since 1975: 11,068,211

Mr Vaisey, like the rest of us, might have difficulty visualising those figures. Let us consider it in terms of the length of a chalk-line (or Bloomsbury pigeon flight) along the Edgeware Road from Marble Arch. Let us say one centimetre represents one record on the PAS database. Our chalk line today would go from the foot of Marble Arch 443,085 cm to Kilburn Tube Station (Iverson Road, where co-incidentally I used to live for a while when a student). If we take the number of "objects" represented by those records, we come to somewhere like Cricklewood Road. So still in comfortable biking distance from Cockspur Street. Very impressive? Well its the combined work of many people over thirteen years and it has cost the Brits thirteen million quid in direct funding alone.

But... the HAAEC says the number of (records of) recordable finds removed from the archaeological record would be about 4,196,418 since the PAS started. How long a chalk line is that many centimetres? It is a line that starts at the foot of Marble Arch, runs up the Edgeware Road, past Watford, St Albans and ends somewhere on the south side of Luton, more or less at the distance between the end of the runway of Luton Airport and Marble Arch. That is one centimetre for every missing find. One centimetre for every recordable archaeological find deliberately removed for personal entertainment and profit from the archaeological record which is a common resource, and vanished without trace. A line from Cockspur Street to Luton Airport. If it cost the Brits thirteen million pounds to get enough finds to get a line a little way up the Edgeware Road, how much would it really cost to get a scheme that would be coping with the rate of erosion to get a line as far as, say - St Albans, about three quarters of the way to Luton Airport?

Obviously, too much. So the answer most British archaeologists apparently adopt is to shrug their shoulders and say it's "better than nothing" and call it a "partnership". And the metal detectorists who've got all the stuff taken from between Cricklewood and Luton Airport are laughing.

Of course there are some who say the HAAEC gives a "false picture". They are right in two regards. The first is that it suggests we (so in other words, the PAS) actually know how many finds are taken, when - even after a thirteen-million-thirteen-year "partnership" with these plunderers of the past, the PAS simply does not. The HAAEC counter is a model, an estimate - but its the best we have. We have to ask by how much it would have to be "wrong" to make the figures acceptable. The second area where it is wrong however takes it the other way, because it takes the UK's population of active metal detectorists as a stable 10 000 (meaning slightly more than 8000 in the area covered by the PAS, which is the figure used in the HAAEC algorithm). I have been doing some thinking about that figure recently and while I feel it was correct (though a conservative estimate) for the period when the Counter was created, several pieces of evidence converge to suggest that the number of metal detector using artefact hunters in Britain has been growing at an annual rate of between 6 and 8% since that time. So the HAAEC should have been ticking away at quickening rate increasing by that amount each year, and it has not. The model is therefore an under-estimate of the number of finds now being lost annually through laissez-faire British policies concerning this activity.


Readers might be interested to know that the chalk line that represents the recordable finds lost to private collecting in England and Wales alone due to metal detecting from 1975 when the hobby really began to take off (one find: one centimetre) stretches from the north wall of Marble Arch to the outskirts of Coventry. But after throwing thirteen million quid at the problem, we only have a record of the ones as far as Kilburn tube station to show for this so-called "partnership".

Vignette: Visualisation of PAS 'achievement' on a map of southern England: red line = PAS records. Blue line = what their 'partners' have taken and PAS has not been able to record, Green line, what metal detectorists have taken since 1975.

PAS "announces archaeological finds are up 35%"

.
Well, it had to happen didn't it? The Museums Journal is reporting that the PAS is announcing that "archaeological finds are up by 36%". That's a laugh isn't it? The overall number of archaeological finds made by archaeologists, members of the public and metal-detector armed artefact hunters is of course much the same as it was the previous year or so, what the author of this article means is that the PAS have bumped-up the numbers of objects in their database by a fair percentage. That is not at all the same thing. What is important is the number of the things being found which contribute information to public knowledge, which however you measure it, it a very small proportion of the finds coming out of the earth year after year, many of them as the result of people going out equipped to deliberately seek them for collection and sale.

Interestingly it is also noted in the Museums Journal text that there was a 10% rise in treasure finds over last year. Since reporting is compulsory, that number is a statistical reflection of the amount of searching going on. That would seem to suggest that the number of people going out to plunder the archaeological record for collectables might be rising by about that percentage a year now the rewards for doing so are being so regularly trumpeted by the national press (led by the PAS). [A conclusion I came to recently on the basis of other sources - I'll write about it and its implications some time].

Ed Vaisey goes metal detecting, you can spot the Minister, the one who goes out in the fields in his clubbing-jeans and town-shoes and manages to keep them clean.

Ed Vaisey, the metal-detecting culture minister, added helpfully that the PAS:

“really is incredibly effective. It’s cost effective, it works and it’s probably the envy of the rest of the world. It connects amateurs and experts, and ensures that what is uncovered underground gets recorded, gets researched and, importantly, often gets displayed to the public”.

The Minister's mind is not really focussing on the issues (perhaps it has been addled by those electromagnetic waves from the metal detector he's been waving, or contact with artefact plunderers masquerading as archaeology's "partners"). Like many a foreign coiney he apparently confuses the Portable Antiquities Scheme with the Treasure Act with that 'displayed to the public' bit. Different things Ed. Most of the finds reported under the PAS disappear entirely into scattered and ephemeral private collections. the only ones (briefly) on 'public display' are those offered on eBay. In what way does the PAS "work", Minister? Has the Minister seen (and understood) the Heritage Action Erosion Counter? (go on Nigel, send a short presentation and the link to Cockspur Street). As for what is "uncovered underground" (sic) being preserved (surely what is most important), there's precious little of that going on, being properly "researched" likewise.

Minister Ed should be advised that the rest of the world does not "envy" English archaeology's crackpot Scheme to partner plunderers of the archaeological world. He is confusing the artefact trade with the "rest of the world". The French see right through it. In mid 2009, French metal detector users carried out a campaign to persuade the French government to adopt the British system which they tried to present as the ideal form of heritage management. The French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand was not persuaded and issued an official statement that pointed out

‘Si ces mesures ont effectivement permis d'augmenter le nombre des déclarations de découvertes d'objets archéologiques métalliques, elles n'ont en rien permis de réduire les atteintes au patrimoine générées par l'utilisation de détecteurs de métaux. Tout au plus permettent-elles de mesurer avec plus d'exactitude l'ampleur de ces atteintes’.

Les Journaux Officiels, 11th August 2009 page7867

So would Minister Vaisey claim that the UK is now 36% closer to mitigating the massive losses to the archaeological record caused by his government's policies on artefact hunting and collecting? I say this is a misleading illusion. This problem is not being addressed at all neither by British policy-makers or apathetic shoulder-shrugging British archaeologists.

Rebecca Atkinson, 'PAS announces 36% rise in archaeological finds' Museums Journal online 25th May 2011.

Bread and Circuses Archaeology: "Shiny Stuff Sets the Agenda"

.
Over on Will Anderson's "The Assemblage: political archaeology" blog is a post raising a point dear to my own heart. It's called "shiny stuff sets the agenda" and is about treasure hunting in the UK. Will makes a significant distinction, not made by many UK archaeologists:

I should say that I think antiquarianism – the documenting and collecting of things from the past for their own sake – is not archaeology.

and it is nice to hear this said out loud by somebody else. No, it is not. Will is also as puzzled by the rest of us about Renfrew's odd stance:

Why is Colin Renfrew vociferous to condemn the illicit antiquities market but is comfortable with ‘responsible’ detecting?

That never has been satisfactorily explained by his Lordship. Surely if the exploitation of archaeological sites merely as a source of collectables is archaeologically bad for the archaeological record where it is illegal, it is equally archaeological bad for the record if it happens to be situated beyond a line on a map which says it is legal. I really do not get his logic. For Anderson, the big archaeological paradox is that:

But though finders who swiftly report major discoveries are described as ‘responsible … exemplary’, is this responsible and exemplary archaeology? [...] In terms of expenditure, buying finds and conducting salvage digs must rank only behind building development as a public cost for ‘archaeology’. But who does it benefit? [...] Archaeologists aren’t entirely blameless [...] Why is there not more pressure to rebalance spending towards investigation of important questions about the past rather than buying shiny stuff and running around after holes dug by looters, er, I mean detectorists?

While the general outline of the argument is one with which I would wholeheartedly agree, I think the writer has been severely misled by the British establishment just how much money is spent on those 'salvage digs'. The whole area is severely under-resourced in what passes for 'policy' over these matters in Britain. In the case of the Staffordshire Hoard for example, a trench 9x13 m, costing a mere 25000 GBP - so about 1% of what the finder got for selling the nation its own cultural heritage - is all that was done to put the metal detector find in a landscape context, when it is clear that so much more needed to be done before the nighthawks got there and further decontextualised the original find. British archaeology simply has not the resources to deal with this properly. Many of the 800 reported Treasure finds from England, and most of the ones reported in Scotland do not get any kind of excavation follow-up whatsoever. Many of the objects themselves never see any kind of full archaeological report (such as all those individual coins from those coin hoards). Basically archaeology here is reduced to just "getting shiny stuff out of the ground and into showcases". As Will points out, this Bread and Circuses pseudo-archaeology differs in no way whatsoever from the kind of antiquarianism practised in the nineteenth century. He concludes:

Perhaps there is just too much invested by the establishment in the shiny stuff. It’s safe, it makes for happy stories, it allows for superlatives – the biggest, most significant, most valuable, goldest … It doesn’t demand the difficult questions and uncomfortable answers that archaeology provides.

Except it raises the very cogent question, just what on earth do British archaeologists think they are doing? About the only thing they are actually doing effectively is keeping the public debate very, very muted.

[all we can hear instead is that the sound of pigeons cooing not only in Bloomsbury Square but the gables of every single university archaeology department and museum building in the country is drowned out by the raucous calls of the magpies gathering shiny things into their nests].

PAS: Missing and Avoiding the Point

.

If any of us had suspicions that the PAS is 'losing it', they really seem confirmed by the latest pronouncement to emerge from their Bloomsbury head office. I have previously discussed (probably several times) the new trend towards so-called "depth advantage" (I would call them 'site-wrecker') metal detectors. I think Heritage Action also has drawn attention to the 'buzz' about them on the detecting forums. You might therefore have expected PAS to be aware that such things exist and that tekkies are discussing them excitedly. Then I have also mentioned here several types of metal detector disguised as something else (like the 'Rover Undercover') which their manufacturers say are designed to be used in situations where the artefact hunter 'does not want to attract attention' to the fact they are metal detecting there. Heritage Action decided it would be a good idea to ask PAS about what they are doing about these new trends in an effort to encourage "best practice" among "finders". So they sent them a question.

Question Posed: “Has PAS ensured that every landowner is aware there are metal detectors disguised as walking sticks and a new generation of deep-seeking metal detectors that pose a potential threat to archaeology?”

Seems like a pretty simple question, not a tricky one at all. British antiquities preservation legislation, such as it is, has its origins in Queen Victoria's day and as such places the responsibility for looking after the buried heritage on the educated class of the day, which was the landowner. And so it remains today, in the case of unscheduled archaeological sites it is the landowner who says who can go on them and plunder them for collectables. As such, Heritage Action has always had the perfectly reasonable standpoint that if we want to protect and preserve the archaeological record, British archaeology should be doing active outreach to landowners to persuade them to (and tell them how best they can from an archaeological point of view) look after the archaeological sites on their land. Like hedges and wildlife.

So it seems to HA (and to me) that to fulfil this role properly includes keeping landowners and land users fully appraised of the threats. In that context, alerting them to the fact that some firms are developing metal detectors disguised as other objects so dishonest users can avoid getting caught artefact hunting where they should not, is entirely justified. Let landowners keep a look out for such machines and consider throwing anyone off their land who is carrying one. Equally, artefact hunters who turn up with 'site wrecker' machines are not the "harmless hobbyists just taking things from the topsoil" they claim to be. Again, the informed landowner (for example those taking part in Environmental Stewardship schemes) might consider whether such machines are not damaging the archaeological heritage and ban their use on their property.

Now HA and I happen to feel that PAS does not do enough to keep landowners informed about what artefact hunting is about, vide the farce over the PAS landowner leaflet. They are afraid (yes) of the reaction of the tekkies, who have made their opinions about this 'going behind their back' (sic) known. So actually I have the feeling they were expecting a short answer to their simple question: "no".

The answer that was received was extremely surprising. It showed above all that PAS did not understand the question!!

Response by PAS: “In response to your question dated 28th April 2011, Roger Bland has asked me to state: Probes such as this have been on the market for several years. They are used to locate the precise location of a metal object within a block of soil once this has been located by the search head of a metal detector. We do not think contacting every landowner to alert them to existence of these devices is either necessary or practicable.”

"Probes such as this?" Roger Bland, the Head of the PAS seems from his reply not to be terribly clued up about the tools of the "finders" with whom his Scheme is in a "partnership". That is pretty astounding, actually. He is confusing the tools to which Heritage Action refers with the pinpoint probes I discussed here earlier. But what HA was talking about are not “probes”, they are metal detectors.

The manufacturers refer to them as that and nothing else and promote them for use in scanning the ground and nothing else. There is in fact no confusion whatsoever about their intended or actual use. One does not require something “disguised as a walking stick” to use as a probe in conjunction with another metal detector. One does need something disguised as a walking stick in order to search in the way the manufacturers indicate – “in areas where you couldn’t with common detectors… without arousing public interest” and to “scan places you never could scan before”. There can be no doubt these machines would be objects of desire for nighthawks (or to be precise in this case, dayhawks), people intent on detecting without anyone knowing.

As HA points out, it is difficult to see how it can be said that it is "not necessary" to keep landowners involved about new developments which could facilitate illegal artefact hunting on their land.

But look how the second element of the question was simply ignored. The PAS totally ignored the bit of the question which asked for its position on "a new generation of deep-seeking metal detectors that pose a potential threat to archaeology?" (I would not have used the word "potential", they DO pose a threat to buried archaeology). That is just a total cop-out.

I suggest next time Heritage Action should go instead and ask the pigeons in Bloomsbury Square, they'd probably get an equally sensible answer to their questions from them than from inside the British Museum.

Disturbed Dugup Dealer Dave: "Blow the whole rotten process up"

.
Deranged Dugup Dealer Dave reckons over on Tim Haines' Yahoo 'AncientArtifacts' discussion list that time is up for US adherence to the 1970 UNESCO Convention.

It is time to blow the whole rotten process up, and set out to implement something better. The UK system of the Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme beckons as a vastly superior, very well proven concept.

Good for him, the US "implementation" of the Convention through a pathetic CCPIA is a farce, let them set up a PAS type system and British-style export licencing procedure in the US and encourage other nations to follow suit. Go for it Dave, but leave the pitchforks, torches and violent inflammatory talk at home.


Have ancient coin collectors considered the consequences of falling in behind the likes of dealer Dave Welsh and dealer Wayne Sayles? Does the PAS appreciate this kind of "support", can it really afford to be associated with the likes of Welsh and Sayles? Should it not be distancing themselves from a group of dealers whose main concern seems to be maintaining the "right" of US dealers and collectors to import illegally exported dugup antiquities from other countries without restrictions and stalling US efforts to help protect the global archaeological resource? Shame on them all.

Bumping Up the Figures

.
I remarked the other day on the composition of the PAS database with regard to the percentages of different types of finds. This is not the only odd feature. Readers might find it entertaining to use the statistical tables in the revamped PAS database to plot out its growth as a histogram (you'll need a big piece of paper if you do it by hand). Plot both "records" and "finds". Quite startling. The curve starts off gently expanding, then after march 2003 it climbs steeply. Then after March 2007 it goes wild. "Brilliant success" the histogram screams. "What on earth...?" says a veteran PAS watcher.

The notion of the "objects" in the database is self-explanatory. That is the statistic that is most often quoted in the PAS propaganda of success. But its not the most significant value. To illustrate this, let's take a kiln waster, a clearly overfired and distorted Roman potsherd. On its own it is not necessarily significant. Find ten of them in an area of a field with a couple of lumps of hard fired clay scattered in an area five metres diameter, they become more so, collect forty of them from the same area and there is little doubt that they should be interpreted to mean there had been a Roman kiln at that spot, and possibly remains of it survive in the subsoil. If a fieldwalker collects four hundred of them, they'll need a bigger box to put them in, but in terms of the basic information, the location of a Roman kiln producing a certain type of pottery, collecting four hundred sherds could be data overkill. In terms of a record, two give all the information that is needed to put that find on a map:

"forty Roman waster sherds of Alice Holt fabric three vessel type Jeffries 43a and 56b found at NGR XR 12345 67890 by fieldwalker Ivor Lookaround in December 2011 in a discrete area five by five metres, deposited in Hangthemall Museum acc no. 66789.11" and "sample of hard fired clay from dense scatter in a discrete area five by five metres found with Roman waster sherds at NGR XR 12345 67890 by fieldwalker Ivor Lookaround in December 2011, deposited in Hangthemall Museum acc no. 66790.11"

As putting an annotated dot on a map is concerned, counting the number of objects taken out of the field and put in a finds bag is only secondary to that.

Thus in terms of documenting archaeological context, the statistic in the PAS database that should be noted is the number of records, not the overall number of objects they comprise, one pair of records of finds indicating a kiln discovery is the same pair of records whether forty objects were taken out of the field or four hundred.

So why does the PAS tend to quote the latter? Because it is the bigger number. Today there are, it says, 441,646 records, so 441646 reports of archaeologically useful information recorded as a result of PAS outreach but "698,639 objects". So that's nearly seven hundred thousand "objects" - objects what? Seven hundred thousand objects taken out of the archaeological record, but where are they? What actually is the value of that piece of information? Actually none whatsoever. Its a big number that is intended to sound impressive and "good value for money".

But is it good conservation? Well, for some years the Heritage Action Erosion counter has been ticking away with (what I am convinced is) a quite conservative estimate of what the archaeological record of England and Wales is losing month by month due to the activities of artefact hunters with metal detectors. Since the PAS was set up, it predicts that 4,189,936 recordable items have been taken out of the soil. In that time, the PAS has made 442 000 records (but nearly 700 000 objects). So that's a shortfall of 3,489,000 objects since the PAS began. Three and a half million objects gone without record from under the nose of the PAS and its legion of uncritically enthusiastic supporters at home and abroad.

It could be worse of course, I mean, look at the figures from February 2010: Total records - 289685, total objects recorded - 456806. So how has this suddenly jumped up in the past year or so to current levels? Are metal detectorists at last flooding to PAS offices with car boots-full of individually bagged artefacts each with a ten figure NGR? Are we at last seeing the fruits of all that expensive dedicated liaison and head-patting, back-slapping partnership and camaraderie with artefact hunters?

Sadly, it seems there are grounds for believing that nothing could be further from the truth. There are instead two other processes in operation here which only superficially create the impression that collaboration with artefact hunters has improved since the early days. Indeed, one might ask the PAS why they do not present the data in a manner more transparent in order that such comparisons can be made between - say 2003-2006 and 2008-2011. Now I could suggest "one reason", but it would be nice to hear their side first, wouldn't it?

The first set of processes that can be demonstrated involves the way the "number of objects" is being bumped up. On the graph for the first decade of PAS operation the curves for the "number of records" and "number of objects" climb up more or less at the same rate, gently diverging from each other as a record consists now and then of a dozen or so potsherds or flints in a bag. Then about March 2007 they start diverging from each other by an increasingly large degree. What is going on? Are the bags of potsherds getting bigger? Are artefact hunters being asked to pick up as many potsherds or flints (because, it's not iron nails and iron slag is it)? I must admit I puzzled over this one for some days when I noticed it, and of course one can search in vain the PAS website for any kind of explicit explanation of what the figures mean beyond "wottalotta stuff we've seen".

But there is one inadvertent clue. Not even on the PAS website, but a chance - offguard?- remark on Facebook no less. It's the usual wottalotta-type remark:

Since we relaunched the database/website last March 4335 people have found and reported 132,274 objects (skewed by one hoard of 52,503 coins!). Database users view 16.12 pages per visit and stay for 13mins 30 seconds. Thanks to you all for making it successful. Now bring your friends and show them what's out there.

What is a 52000 coin hoard doing on the PAS database? The PAS database is for non-Treasure finds, isn't it? Well, the clue is that in March 2007 within the structure of the BM the Portable Antiquities Scheme was formally linked to the Treasure Unit, which had formerly functioned semi-independently (Roger Bland being head of both). What seems therefore to have happened is that some, or maybe all, Treasure statistics are now being added to the PAS database as PAS-data. The Staffordshire hoard is there for example. That is why after March 2007 the two curves diverge so strongly, the "number of objects" statistics are now being supplemented by coin hoards containing several thousand items apiece. In no way can the figures presented as "PAS success" on the PAS website be attributed alone to the success of PAS outreach (Treasure finds have to be reported by law, their reporting is a totally different phenomenon from the voluntary reporting of non-Treasure finds by responsible metal detectorists). What the ACTUAL detailed figures for the latter are is anyone's guess, the PAS has for the past couple of years seemingly gone out of its way not to present them to public scrutiny.

But that does not provide the whole explanation for the amazing jump of the past year or so in PAS database statistics. To suss that out, compare the database figures for Friday 19th March 2010 and those for Monday 22nd March 2010, up from 291559 records of 459630 objects to 382 303 records of 550 374 objects overnight. Coin elves in the BM? A very big commercial metal detecting rally? Actually this was the entry onto the PAS database of Oxford University's Celtic Coin Index, data gathered independently of the PAS since the 1960s. I am surprised Canadian celtophile did not notice the inordinately high percentage of "Celtic coin" finds on the PAS database search I discussed here earlier. This is the explanation why now it is much higher than the **% pre-CCI-data-insertion. It seems that about the same time another externally-compiled database was added to the PAS database, the Iron Age and Roman Coins of Wales database compiled at Cardiff University. The addition of these two databases is responsible for the relatively large jump in numbers of records made in 2010 and (since both external databases also contain records of hoards) the "number of objects" curve to give the current inflated total.

While to some degree some may argue that these databases - being records of "portable antiquities" - belong in the PAS database (I don't), it is without question that the lack of differentiation of these different types of statistics in the one dataset renders it completely useless as a means of assessing to what degree the PAS is achieving success in their outreach to metal detectorists and to what degree it is being successful (or not) in mitigating the information lost through unrecorded artefact hunting. This is not an insignificant question, for it was to achieve this that the PAS was set up, and to which end thirteen million quid has now been spent on it in direct funding alone.

It would be honest and transparent of the PAS to provide some sort of public explanation of the contribution individual components of their database are making to its overall shape, what it represents and what it does not represent, allowing the fuller analysis of these figures concerning the effects of expenditure of public funds. Otherwise it is simply creating a false impression of the degree to which artefact hunters are voluntarily reporting their finds to the Scheme.

We might address a direct question to the PAS what these statistics actually are, and why they choose not to make them visible in the public domain, but I really think we will get nothing in the way of an answer from them. My guess is that they are well aware that the figures are not really very much in favour of the notion that they are achieving anything like a satisfactory result in the way of mitigation of the erosive effects of ten thousand of their "partner" metal detectorists stripping out selected geegaw goodies from the archaeological record for collection for personal entertainment and profit.

The PAS database: What people collect in the UK

.

The PAS database is an interesting thing, there are so many data there, but then again so many things you can't fathom out due to the lack of data (unless you have some kind of special access to the hidden bits I suppose). But what can a mere member of the general public make of it? Well, the PAS keep plugging the "wotta lotta stuff" angle: in our database today there are x hundred thousand artefacts, in x hundred thousand records and x thousand ordinary blokes like you contributed. (Today, if anyone is interested, the respective "numbers" are 697,904 objects, 440,991 records, 18,984 people involved. Hooray, eh?)

But never mind the quantity, what about the quality? To what degree are the artefacts being reported by Joe Public at all representative of the bits of the British archaeological record they came from? I would argue - from several points of view - not at all. Obviously what the PAS records is only a reflection of what people bring it, and when most of their "partners" are artefact collectors, its going to reflect what people collect from the archaeological record, what they select from its rich variety for their own purposes. And artefact collectors do not collect just any old thing, and they do not collect representatively, they collect highly selectively, "selective pickup" we can call their process of exploiting the archaeological record.

Let us have a look at the quantities of material from two different categories as represented in the PAS database. Coins and non-coins. Search for "coin" on their database, and you get the answer

You searched for:
Object type: COIN
Your search returned 224357 results. You are viewing 1 - 30.

So 224000 of the records (or is that artefacts? Who knows?) on the database are COINS. Roughly a half. But there are very few sites and assemblages where coins make up half of - even the metal - finds. There is usually lots of pottery though. The search engine does not like the word "ceramic" or "pottery", nor "potsherd". The word "pot" produces quite a surprising result:

You searched for:
Object type: pot
Your search returned 593 results. You are viewing 1 - 30.

Whoah!! Ten thousand metal detectorists have been scanning thousands of 'productive sites' of all periods and in coming up to a decade and a half, only stooped to pick up five hundred handfuls of pottery? They must be stomping over hundreds of thousands of ancient and Medieval potsherds without taking the slightest interest. The same with:

Object type: Tile
Your search returned 586 results.

That's a pretty skewed picture of the British archaeological record, that's without doing a search for animal bone, slag, oystershell etc.

What about periods of the collected artefacts? More serious skewing. Let us do a Statistical analysis of the database for Wednesday 1st January 1997 until Thursday 12th May 2011 for example, let us look at the artefacts put into the database by period as a proportion of the total of 440 745 records. There are 15 299 Prehistoric and Stone Age items in the database (i.e., 3% of the material comes from a period several dozen centuries long). Of these 772 items were Palaeolithic, 5920 were Mesolithic, while the Neolithic was represented by 8100 finds. There were 5204 Bronze Age items (1%), and 46 845 Iron Age ones (11% of the total, mostly single coin finds). The largest group was Romano-British items (191 711 items –44%, again with a high proportion of coins). The Early Medieval period was represented by 16 786 finds (4%), mostly personal ornaments, while there were 91728 (15%) Medieval finds (among which coins and personal ornaments predominate). The database record also contains records of 64954 Post Medieval and 1679 modern items (together 15% of the total - but this material is selected out by the PAS rather than artefact hunters). Just 6385 items were of unknown date. This is very similar to the proportions of finds sold on eBay to collectors, lots of Roman, lots of coins, lots of ethnically-assignable personal ornament, little anything else.

Due to the manner in which it is collected, the PAS database is not providing a very accurate picture of what evidence for past activity is out in the fields of Britain.