Artefact Hunting: "It Is Not against the Law, if No-One Can See You"

An interesting, and perhaps provocative/controversial presentation containing some pertinent observations and fascinating detail: Samuel Andrew Hardy 2021, 'It Is Not against the Law, if No-One Can See You: Online Social Organisation of Artefact-Hunting in Former Yugoslavia' Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology nnn

Abstract
This study uses open-source intelligence to analyse the illicit excavation and illicit trafficking of archaeological goods (and forgeries) across the Balkan-Eastern Mediterranean region(s) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. It draws on texts and images that have been published by hundreds of artefact-hunters across tens of online communities and other online platforms. These include online forums; social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram; social media, such as Pinterest and YouTube; generic trading platforms, such as eBay, Etsy and olx.ba; and specialist trading platforms, such as VCoins. It shows how artefact-hunters target sites, features and objects; reveal the objects that are collectible and/or marketable; acquire equipment; form patron-client relationships, peer-to-peer partnerships and other cooperative groups; engage in transnational activity; crowdsource techniques for smuggling; crowdsource ways to avoid being caught or punished; and respond to policing. Often, they give identifying details or leave an electronic paper trail that enables their identification. Such information also reveals the destructiveness of processes of extraction and consumption; the economics of the low-end market in cultural goods from poor countries; the gender dimension in cultural property crime and cyber-enabled crime; and the interaction between political allegiance and criminal activity. Thereby, this study shows how netnography and social network analysis can support intelligence-led policing.

Hardy, SA. 2021. It Is Notagainst the Law, if No-OneCan See You: Online SocialOrganisation of Artefact Hunting in Former Yugoslavia. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 4(1), 169–187. DOI: https://doi. org/10.5334/jcaa.76

British Metal Detecting: Where are the Resources to Deal Properly with England's "Responsible Metal Detecting Problem"?

[PACHI] I wrote a comment in response to a tweet by a lady that excavated a hoard "very responsibly" reported by an artefact hunter. I seem to have touched a nerve pointing out that such ad hoc responses should not be being needed a full 25 years after England and Wales embarked on the PAS-reporting-adventure.  I suggest that if British archaeologists just play along with a demonstrably bad and try and make-do all the time every time, nothing will change.  I seem to have found some people who think they will. Tweet just now from Mike Pitts (@pittsmike 8 g).

You are of course entitled to your views. I'm of the opinion, however, that substantial progress has been achieved in this field by seeking to help, advise and work with others, and that broadcasting negative assumptions about people without investigation has never been fruitful

I don't suppose I'll get an answer to my query: "Care to enlighten us on those "assumptions" actually made in my post?", just the same as we'll not hear what Dr Wendy Morrison (the original tweeter) has seen here that apparently makes her think I'd "ban metal detecting", when I have consistently said here that I think the best way forward is a proper project-specific permit system. Anyway, what's the point of discussing with the "substantial progress has been made" devotees? 

You may have your opinion, I think that huge damage has been done by current policies on artefact hunting and the unfulfilled hope that "huge progress" will "one day" be made if you all just grit your teeth and wait long enough. As what we can see on the forums and through the blossoming of commercial digging firms, it's just not happening. I see nothing wrong with pointing that out. I see everything wrong with just trying to ignore it, and pointing to a few poster-boy exceptions to the general picture as if they show that the problem is just a matter of waiting a little longer while being as nice as possible to the artefact hunters stripping the fields and hopeful that they'll show us more stuff UK archaeology (PAS etc) is unresourced to deal with. 

Which is the point I started with. if there are 27000 artefact hunters with metal detectors alone (which I believe there are), all going out looking for stuff, how actually is Britain in any way prepared to give any of them proper archaeological support should even 15%  of them actually requested archaeological help, maybe twice a year each, with recovery of a below-ploughsoil assemblage, or plotting a complex surface scatter of evidence (metallic or otherwise). How much would that cost if the UK was not expecting archaeologists like dr Morrson to go out there and do it for free? 

Has the UK actually made "substantial progress" in reaching that "15%" (4050 tekkies, asking even one time a year)? Has the UK actually got the spare resources in place not only to recover the evidence, but properly analyse it and then write up and publish the results? 

In Poland, in the 1960s, Adam Rajewski of the State Archaeological Museum here in Poland set up the so-called "Pogotowie Archaeologiczne" (archaeology rescue) which consisted of a van parked in the Museum courtyard packed with tools and equipment ready to move off with a group of archaeologists from among the museum employees to any place in the country where a fresh discovery had been made in agriculture or development. Other museums (such as Konin) also set up similar services.  Where is the British Museum's van parked? 

Vignette: Resource guarding

 

New Book on Conflict Landscapes

 

[PACHI] When I came here to Poland nearly 40 years ago, it seemed like I was leaving for the end of the world, such isolation ("recipe for oblivion" one late archaeological mentor warned me). Although that's certainly not how I see it now ([geographical] "centre of Europe" after all)*, old mental habits are hard to break. So when I saw that on Twitter there was a lot of talk of this new book, and it's an archaeological theme that over the past two years I've got more enthusiastic about, my first thought was of a colleague who is trying to raise awareness in Poland about this: "must inform Ania about it", so I pull up the Amazon page... and then see from the contents list that she's in it. (Good in a way, because if I'd written now, I'd have had to explain why at the moment I'm not writing that book review I promised). 

What is interesting is that in a country like Poland where in many areas you can't go for a walk very far before almost tripping over some remains of twentieth century conflict, and where in theory all those remains are automatically covered by heritage protection laws, actual archaeological research on it is so sparse.   Perhaps that is because it is so full of traumatic memories for the entire population, including people that are alive today and were/are affected by it (such as my dear mother-in-law), that archaeological research seems superfluous and still rakes up so many bad emotions and memories. This is something difficult for the average Brit to understand. I had huge problems with this when I came here. 

The growth in popularity of literature on conflict landscapes, so-called 'dark heritage' and the like in the areas to the west is also an interesting social phenomenon that it might be interesting to explore.

* present government and its populist ideologies I trust a temporary phase

British metal detecting: Heritage Action: What’s worse than losing hedgehogs and dormice?

 

[PACHI] So often, the collection-driven destruction of the archaeological record is discussed as a matter of "collectors' rights" and "dealers' profits" rather than the massive resource conservation problem it actually is, as pointed out this week by Heritage Action (What’s worse than losing hedgehogs and dormice?). So, when we've not totally eradicated the population we can reintroduce species locally in 'reserves' where they were once present, but forced out by environmental change. So in Poland we have reconstructed bison herds, "there are now sea eagles on the South Coast of England for the first time in 240 years", but, Heritage Action point out:

reintroductions are a double-edged sword, distracting from the fact some extinctions are forever. Hence, few people care that an army of detectorists is engaged in removing archaeological artefacts from the fields. Yet those losses, especially when not reported, are the worst, for they're irreversible: not a single unreported archaeological artefact will ever be replaced nor will any archaeological site exhausted in secret. Sadly such losses are both avoidable and unnecessary. They happen only for personal amusement or personal profit, hence toleration of them is largely confined to Britain.

Vignette: The right way to collect bison. acquisitive metal detectorists have got it wrong about how to express an interest in the past by simply wanting to own it.

British metal detecting: RAP30: Espoli, Tràfic Il·lícit i Falsificacions de Biéns Arqueològics

 

The latest volume (30) of the periodical of the University of Lleida "Revista d'Arqeologia de Ponent" is devoted to looting illicit trafficking and falsification of archaeological material in Europe and beyond. It has two texts critical of the approach of a little island off the coast of the European mainland, the first is by this blog's author: 'Some Aspects of the Collection-Driven Exploitation of the Archaeological Record in England and Wales' (RAP 30, pp 101-125) written in September 2019. It is a view that I hope balances some of the pro-PAS stuff that dominates the discussions of the issue of artefact hunting in the UK. There is another coming out in a couple of weeks that is its counterpart. 

My paper in RAP is preceded by Neil Brodie's paper on the PAS and "metal detecting" in England and Wales. This is an unfortunate consequence of a joint work involving different writers working independently. The presence of two texts on the same subject is rather unfortunate because it makes it look as if what happens in the UK has any real relevance to the rest of the world. It does not. There is also a frustrating overlap between the two. I was amused to see this blog (and Heritage Action's) merely referred to on Brodie's p95 as an "untapped information lode". Yet on this blog are posts directly referring to some of the questions posed in his paper by Brodie and indeed offering some of the information he was struggling to find (and some of these gaps are filled by my own text in the same volume). This is interesting in the light of Brodie's own comments about 'boundary fixing'.

There are some interesting contributions to this volume (see contents below: photo byNellie Abboud). There is the expected focus on Near Eastern stuff (including one on the issue of ISIL looting), I was intrigued to see two from Argentina, several on fighting "archaeolooting" (it means metal detectors) [lovely word: 'arqueofurtivisimo'], one that defends the good name of metal detectors as an archaeological tool (but pro-tekkie archaeologists should look however at how it ends pp 145-6). Really quite interesting in this context was the grouping of three papers at the end about the cognitive consequences of fake artefacts. The editors of this volume are to be congratulated on this useful contribution to the discussion. 

Coming back to my text, PAS head office will be receiving a copy of my text as a matter of courtesy (together with the second paper when it comes out). Anyone who wants a pdf of the first is invited to write either directly, or to the comments below with an email address (that will not be published) and I will send it next week.  Critical substantive discussion, comment and reasoned polemic are, as usual welcomed. Especially from the PAS and Helsinki Gang.  [And yes, before someone gleefully points it out, I am aware that there is - despite (or perhaps due to) several revisions - there is an incomplete sentence on p.  114, grrrrrrr. But the sense is clear]. 

Reference:

Barford, Paul 2020, 'Some Aspects of the Collection-Driven Exploitation of the Archaeological Record in England and Wales', Revista d'Arquelogia de Ponent 30, pp 101-125.

 

Polish Detectorists Have a Go at Polish Archaeologists: Introduction

Some metal detectorists in Poland are very similar to the majority in the UK in many ways. Here's a trailer for a film they've created to help smooth the path to closer collaboration and persuade lawmakers to effect detectorist-friendly legislation. The film, Ciemna strona archeobiznesu- cz.1 [the Dark Side of the Archaeobusiness - Part 1] is out, but in Polish, but the trailer gives a flavour of the tone adopted:

Posted on You Tube by Polski Związek Eksploratorów

They are trying to discredit archaeologists and archaeology (and so therefore archaeological resource preservation). This is no more than the usual 'two wrongs' artefact hunters traditionally apply. Let's see where that gets them. I'll review the film for the non-Polish speakers when we get more parts, at the moment it's pretty pathetic (and both detectorists and archaeologists not only committed mistakes here, but showed a hefty dose of ill will). 

Here is is for the hardy... Despite the dramatic music and sound effects it's pretty slow-moving and poorly-edited. The first 5 minutes 12 seconds is a ("what we're going to show you") preamble, the actual contents start at 5:13, with a film of some metal detectorist going over a site that he asserts is Niewieścin site 36 in 2018... 

Posted on You Tube by Polski Związek Eksploratorów

Told you so.

Artefact Hunters and the Archaeology of WW1 in Western Flanders

A "hobbyist" cannot make an investigation of and record
 such a complex feature with just a metal detector and a spade
 ( photograph  Q 3990 by John Warwick Brooke )

Another special pleading text on behalf of the artefact hunting community by the same merry band of myopic grant-seekers from the Helsinki EPFRN academic network. Suzie Thomas and Pieterjan Deckers have recently published an open access article titled "‘And now they have taken over’: hobbyist and professional archaeologist encounters with the material heritage of the First World War in western Belgium" in the International Journal of Heritage Studies. "The article stems from research carried out in Western Flanders during a research visit to Vrije Universiteit Brussel by Thomas and a collaboration with Deckers".

Abstract:

Since almost immediately after the fighting ended, the First World War (WWI) sites of conflict in Western Flanders, Belgium, have attracted attention from visitors and collectors. Heritage management questions came to the fore especially in the run-up to WWI’s centenary years (2014–2018), and professional archaeologists representing the authorities in Flanders had already begun to take a greater interest in the war’s archaeological remains. The activities of hobbyist amateurs, particularly metal detectorists, came under greater scrutiny. In this article, we explore the perspectives of local hobbyist enthusiasts and heritage professionals in the context of changing attitudes towards and values associated with the material heritage of the WWI in Western Flanders. We reflect upon the tensions that emerge when different interest groups clash, the disagreements between professional and amateur interests, and also upon the particular context of conflict heritage when there are numerous interests and stakeholders involved. 

Here we see these two plugging their usual object-focused arguments ("increasing realisation of the potential of metal-detected finds for contributing to archaeological knowledge if recorded properly" p. 3) and they attempt to frame the discussion "in terms of three dimensions of power in relation to archaeological heritage" (p. 1). They wrote of collection-driven exploitation of the archaeological record as "hobbyists who have spent time making their own investigations on the area – with differing degrees of archaeological rigour”. The point is though, surely, the material heritage is not just "digging up things" and people protect rhinos from poachers and whales, or campaign against plastic in the seas as an expression of "power" . And archaeological rigour is what separates responsible use of a resource and its destructive squandering. It is what is responsible for making a contribution to archaeological knowledge. The authors' text contains not a single feature plan or site plan resulting from a hobbyist's "own investigations" of this fragile archaeological resource. 

German army belt buckle
 WW1, Wijtschate

Archaeology is more than just hoiking out loose objects ("here's another belt-buckle, ooo this one's been nicked by shrapnel!")  from x-marks-the-spot. Sites like the one in the photo above have complex stratigraphy recording how they were created, used, damaged and modified. A metal detectorist blindly digging a deep but ultimately narrow hole down through the decayed remains of this because he "got a good signal" is destroying the contextual and archaeological evidence of that site - and thus obliterating the very story the hobbyist hoiker has the ambition to tell. They "navigate" the evidence by digging blindly down through and cherry-picking most of it. 

There was an Eastern Front too, it's a shame - in the interests of transnationality - that these writers do not take a wider view of the question they are discussing and do not reference any literature from recent work on the eastern Front in Poland where some of these issues have also been discussed, and the role of amateur digging in the destruction of the fragile and complex (and contentious) archaeological record highlighted. These sites cannot be "investigated" by just running a metal detector across the top, and anything else is just removing evidence (and disturbing remains). When you look at what is lost through this, it is difficult to see why archaeologists should be ambiguous about the ethical issues here.

Deckers (Aarhus) and Thomas (Helsinki) are among the six academics that authored a paper (2018, 322) that decry polarised "opinions" about collection-driven exploitation of the archaeological record and place "ethical standpoints" on the same footing as "emotive arguments". They suggest that such a position loses ground when counterpointed by "a thorough understanding of the background, practices and impacts of nonprofessional metal detecting". It is a shame therefore that they do not consider the impact of hoiking out selected artefacts (only) on the complex stratigraphies of sites of twentieth century conflict due to the "background and practices" of hobbyist "metal detecting". When they do, they might then be in a better position to preach to the rest of us (Thomas and Pitblado 2020) how "harmless" their spades are. 

(and yes, purists, I know the photo is The Somme and not Flanders, and its a formerly German trench being manned by British soldiers, which further complicates the archaeological record)

References

P Deckers, A Dobat, N Ferguson, S Heeren, M Lewis, S Thomas 2018, 'The complexities of metal detecting policy and practice: A response to Samuel Hardy,‘Quantitative analysis of open-source data on metal detecting for cultural property’(Cogent […]' Open Archaeology 4 (1), 322-333.

Suzie Thomas and Pieterjan Deckers (2020) ‘And now they have taken over’: hobbyist and professional archaeologist encounters with the material heritage of the First World War in western Belgium, International Journal of Heritage Studies [unnumbered pages]

Suzie Thomas and Bonnie L. Pitblado 'The dangers of conflating responsible and responsive artefact stewardship with illicit and illegal collecting' Antiquity 2020.