Saturday 24 November 2012

Focus on UK Detecting: Chicago Ron and the Enhancement of the British Archaeological Record


From the forum thread mentioned in the post above thread entitled 'Chicago Ron and friends':
One commentator suggests seeding is going on:
maybe they pay so much to detect that some bits possible might have been popped into the ground? Just a thought.
This would, another member points out, produce an anomaly - quite apart from any contamination of the archaeological record - the British public then has to pay:
Thing is, if it is all planted and if, when treasure it is declared, as is suggested in the vids, then we have a situation where the state is paying out for a false historical record plus, of course, the 'seeds' then become free. Bonus!
Another member searched a site this group had previously been active on and was surprised at what he was finding, he thinks they are pricing local artefact hunters out of the market by offering high fees for archaeologically-productive sites:
For the sort of money they can afford to pay landowners it's hardly surprising that they get great sites and find stuff. A while ago I detected on a site in Norfolk that they had recently visited and it was still stuffed full of hammered and other great finds, including BA and Celtic. I found the most hammereds in a day and a weekend that I'd ever had in thirty years (then) of detecting. [...]
Another also doubts they are seeding sites:
If I was seeding a site for organised dig for a handful of people I'd make sure I found f-all or didn't detect. But the lad Ron finds as much as the others. For me it's not seeded, it's just done hard every hour god sends on great land.
The logic of this escapes me. If the aim is to show people that "these fields are full of stuff" and the stuff has been planted, surely it makes sense for the organizers to retrieve as much of it as possible themselves but making sure everybody else taking part sees it. Whatever, another member points out that somebody is making a lot of money out of selling off the British archaeological heritage to random searchers from abroad:
Imagine the number of trips they sell off the back of those videos, I don't know what is seeded and what isnt but financially it could make a lot of sense A) for whoever runs the trips and B) for the guy who gets the youtube revenue and might make a nice comission on trips he sells from being emailed!
It might be interesting to add to that the thoughts of the Essex FLO on whose patch this group are operating most frequently (she's based in Colchester) about recording these finds...

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