Metal Detecting – Recording your finds

This is a Detectorists viewpoint on why you should record your finds

I can give you two of what must be many examples of why it is important to record (or at least to log) every find be it scabby Roman grot or piffling artefact.

I take as my first example the villages in my area of the Lincolnshire Wolds. These have for the most part Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian names and it might therefore be natural to assume that is when these sites were first settled. In fact most of the sites that I have searched have had a scattering of Roman coins on them suggesting that they must at least have had a single farmstead on them in the Roman period. The major Roman settlements are well known and it is no surprise to find Roman coins and artefacts on and around them but in many ways metal detected random finds are just as important because they are pointing to settlement patterns that we know very little about. Roman grots can often be roughly dated and that can give some idea of the date the site was in use. The coin itself might be intrinsically worthless but combined with other evidence it might be historically priceless. Multiply my finds by x number of people detecting in the area and you would have when collated what would amount to a landscape survey. Without the use of metal detectors and the people that use them responsibly we would have very little of this evidence.

My second example would be the distribution patterns of certain objects and/or the decorative elements on them both of which might suggest more than is at first obvious to the untutored eye. Find spots for say Viking style artefacts outside of the Danelaw would be of interest to more than the art historian. To spot these patterns and to give them meaningful analysis requires lots of finds and of course they need to be recorded. I think most if not all detectorists like to identify and date their finds and to do this other similar finds will need to have been recorded and published. It has to be admitted that in most instances the only way to achieve accurate dating of finds is by conventional archaeology and excavation from context. Although the metal detector cannot be used to directly date artefacts the quantity of finds that they make can be used to date sites by comparative means. The evidence that this supplies – very often from areas of seemingly little archaeological interest – can be very important indeed.

In the second example the PAS is probably best placed for recording as the more decorative items are bound to be ‘cherry-picked’. The absolute quantity of the more mundane items is unfortunately likely to swamp the system but that is not to say that your own records should not be kept or even submitted to the local museum where they can be kept and available for future research. I feel that in one way or another all finds should be recorded and if we can keep this on a voluntary basis rather than by legislation then so much the better.

Ceejay