Archaeologists and Detectorists

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Filed under: Articles, General — Norfolk Wolf

This continual battle by some on both sides of the fence was brought to my attention a few days ago (again) and seeing as I now have my own website I can now put forward my feelings on this hoary subject. In the early days of my detecting I suppose that I was one of the lucky ones. Way back, when some of you who are reading this weren’t even a gleam in your father’s eye; I was lucky, no make that privileged, to meet up with an absolutely brilliant Archaeologist by the name of Tony Gregory.

On first meeting he struck me as being your original middle class hippy “arky”, Jesus boots, (sandals) worn out jeans, a checked shirt open at the neck, three buttons down showing off a mass of chest hair. The obligatory beard and eyes that looked straight at you instead of sliding around the corner and top this off with a long mass of straggly hair. Boy, did he know how to spark up your interest. If only my old history teacher had had a fraction of his enthusiasm, instead of all the dry boring stuff he tried poking into me.

It reached the stage where Tony would knock, let himself in, politely demand for the kettle to be put on and then ask what fields I would be working that day. “Right sling yer gear in my land-rover and let’s go have a look”. I’d be swinging the coil, whilst he was off field-walking looking for any signs of habitation. “It’s worth giving it a try over there; I’ve just picked up a few sherds of Iron Age pottery”. “Look at the difference between these and this Roman grey-ware, and this orange stuff is Samian-ware that was imported during those times.” Now tell me, how could you not get fired- up with all that encouragement, knowledge and friendliness being shown to you?

It was a very sad day when he died of cancer, but he left a legacy that has been continued by ALL the archaeologists in Norfolk. Andrew Rogerson, Tim Pestle, David Gurney et al, these are all straight-up guys that acknowledge the importance of the role that metal detectorists play in modern archaeology.
Now for the other side of the coin.

Time Team.
Televisions archaeological answer to a road-constructors convention. Have digger, will travel. What a hypocritical, self opinionated bunch!
Let’s look at this in detail.

Hypocritical? Any one that states “All metal detectorists are thieves” and then use sites found by metal detectorists, then use them to find the gear on the sites with NO acknowledgement whatsoever.
Self-opinionated? Find a bit of Samian pottery, from this, not only can you tell the shape of the pot, what it contained, and what room in the house (?) it would be standing but also what street in the town the house stood! How do they spell “gall”? Gaul?
What makes me laugh is that detectorist’s still volunteer to go on the programme in the hope of being seen and perhaps getting a bit of 5 seconds of fame. Still that’s their business and I ain’t about to poke my nose too far into it.

Here is a true story giving an example of the fallacy in believing their high falluting flights of fancy. The Time team did a “dig” at Bawsey ruins a few years back, this place is that close to my house it’s literally just out of spitting distance. After a couple of days and many tons of earth later they came across a skull with a slice in the top section. It was deemed that remarkable they even had an artist draw the scene of a geezer on horseback slicing this poor blokes noggin with this dirty great sword. The archaeologist went to great lengths to demonstrate that this was the only way it could have occurred. Well, the locals had a real good laugh at this because it wasn’t a sword that did the damage to the poor old boy’s skull, but a spear.
Did I say “spear”? Well it was a spear, a Spear and Jackson spade used by my brother.

Back in the early sixties metal detecting was unheard of really, and this old ruined church on the hill was like a magnet to my brother. Each weekend he was up there digging around, and unearthing floor-tiles and what have you. This particular Sunday he took his young employee (my brother was a greengrocer) with him. Now little ol’ Jimmy was only 16 or so and thought this lark was dead exciting. He changed his mind when my brother stuck the spade in the ground and pulled out a skull that was embedded on the blade! Cor, you never seen anyone move so fast in all your life, Jimmy let out a shriek and legged it down the hill as though his backside was on fire. Well my brother wondered what was up with him thinking he had been hurt and ran after him, still with this skull stuck on the end of the spade! He couldn’t understand why Jimmy kept on trying to run away, poor old Jimmy had nightmares about it for three weeks after that.

Anyway my brother reburied the skull along with a few old leg and arm-bones that he had “come across”, and thought he’d turn his attention elsewhere. A fair number of years went by and detecting by then had taken hold and the farmer had given permission to a couple of people and they were pulling the stuff out of the ground around that church in a big way.
Enter the Time team mob (Mitt und der JCB and stripey jumpers) to do a programme and spout all their theories. Blast didn’t the local boys have a good old laugh up their sleeves when they saw the artist’s picture. I reckon he could have got a bigger laugh if he had have drawn my brother chasing after Jimmy with the skull on the end of the spade.

Respect is needed on both sides of the argument, at times these needs to be worked at; as described by a good friend of mine Daz from Wales. I can only give my own opinion on why I personally like to record with the archaeologists (PAS etc) all the finds that I make that are note worthy. I first started to hand in finds to my FLO for the PAS in October 04, this being a first for me in regards to meeting the ESTABLISHMENT and to see their response to me as a detectorist (not many detectorists in my area) and my interest in them and what they could do for me. I certainly felt uneasy and very cautious at entering such a place for the first time when it has been publicly known that a detectorist is not always a welcome guest amongst the archaeological community!

Anyway after many weeks and after many finds for recording a relationship quietly began to establish. Some months on, a healthy Dialogue started to flourish as well and a certain amount of respect was being well earned on both sides and, it is now at the stage where I can enter this same establishment with a certain amount of ease knowing that I am a welcome visitor.

All my finds that are recorded are always returned promptly, I also have free access to any info on my area whether it be ancient documents, aerial photo’s, historical books etc etc, to be more frank any info I need is always freely given with the knowledge that I require that information for detecting purposes!

The assistance I had at first was very cool towards me, but as my dear old dad would say “slowly, slowly, catchee monkey”. Some of you may think that I’m naive at what I have posted and perhaps not having a full grasp on things regarding these current threads, but the way in which I have treated by the archaeological fraternity I can not see as being negative in any shape or form. If it changes, you will be the FIRST TO KNOW. Darrel Gittens.
John.