What is it about?
This comment discusses two previous papers on the archaeological impacts of the metal-detecting hobby, making corrections to one critique, and pointing out errors and over-simplifications of the other's portrayal of Canadian heritage law with respect to metal detecting, as one among the many examples used in that paper. It concludes with some suggestions about potentially better ways to assess these impacts.
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Why is it important?
Given the possibility that metal detecting, and especially unreported finds by metal detectorists, could lead to significant loss of archaeological information, it is critical to determine which heritage policies are most conducive to the protection and preservation of this information, and which ones create vulnerabilities.
Perspectives
I am skeptical that simply banning metal detecting in all contexts is the best policy and suspect that encouraging the reporting of finds from unrestricted zones (i.e., still protecting sites, cemeteries, etc.) and codes of ethics for metal-detecting societies may be a better approach. However, we still lack reliable data to guide this decision.
Edward B Banning
University of Toronto
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Archaeological Impacts of Metal Detecting, Open Archaeology, January 2019, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/opar-2019-0013.
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