Bill Wyman
tells us how he's been keeping busy since leaving the Rolling Stones.
Bill loves metal detecting so much that he's brought out his very own metal detector.
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Make no mistake, what Bill Wyman is doing is not archaeology - it's treasure hunting. I believe that he is one of the more responsible treasurer hunters - he reports his finds through the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) - but many don't. Finds divorced from their context are worse than useless - they're vandalism. Archaeology is about reconstructing past lives and past actions - once the item is removed from its context, a potentially vital bit of evidence has been destroyed. Those who don't report their finds are worse still - we don't even have the vague evidence that Iron Age, or Roman, or Medieval man had been there. The consequence is that further damage may be done - by ploughing, by other metal detecctorists or by elicit night hawks who rob ancient remains - because a site is unrecognised. Also - don't wash metal finds - ever. It only hastens the deterioration which begins as soon as they are removed from the equilibrium they had reached over centuries in the ground.
Complain about this postI was dying for Bill Wyman to say a little bit more about the Portable Antiquities Scheme as his enthusiasm will no doubt encourage new metal detectorists. Metal detecting can contribute greatly to archaeological knowledge, providing the position of the find is recorded accurately in situ, and then the items found are identified carefully and are all recorded. Bill Wyman may well be doing some useful archaeology if he is following these tenets. Metal detecting is beginning to be used to be used more routinely in archaeology, for example, for finding new sites, just as Bill Wyman has done.
Complain about this postThankyou for your more positive comments Karen, us metal detectorists are sick and tired of the negative 'nighthawking/vandals/treasure hunters' views that the odd few people are still bandying about. What people with little experience of metal detecting don't realise is that between us we have contributed hugely to the archaeological record of this country, particularly since the rise of the PAS which has made reporting finds so much easier. Very very few detectorists are in it for 'treasure' - you'd have to be mad frankly since most people would spend an average of 15 solid years of cold wet weekends out in the mud before they ever came across a single gold coin! The vast majority of detecting takes place on ploughed fields or beaches precisely because the archaeological context has already been disturbed - the finds would be out of reach of the detector if they weren't! What we do is ensure the findspot of any detected or 'eyes only' artefact (inc pot sherds, flint tools etc) is recorded for posterity and to help with distribution maps. A findspot clearly only gives a rough guide to where the item was originally lost (the vast majority of artefacts are those that were lost or broken in antiquity - it is extremely rare to find complete and deliberately buried items - thats why they make the news when it happens) but the alternative is that the object lies undiscovered and unknown, meanwhile continuing to be rolled around and further damaged in the plough soil or sand. Any detectorist who has been going since the early days of their invention can tell you that the quality of preservation of finds has been deteriorating noticeably since the 60's thanks to the more intensive farming methods now used. Most of the bronze coins and artefacts that survived their first 1000 years or so fairly intact are now found in a barely recognisable state. People like Becky also need to remember that what we are digging up is our history too - it doesn't only belong to people with specific academic qualifications.
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