Halte au Pillage | Bulletin n°2 - interview Paul Barford

MOBILISONS-NOUS CONTRE LE PILLAGE DU PATRIMOINE !

Bulletin n°02, avril 2009

Why did the STOP campaign fail ?
- Interview de Paul Barford, archéologue britannique

Why did the STOP campaign fail at the end of the 1970s?
That’s an interesting question. The message itself (“Stop Taking Our Past”) was a totally valid one, but “taking our past” is precisely what artefact hunters who use metal detectors on archaeological sites have been doing in Britain for over three decades. One reason it failed was British archaeologists were quite unprepared for the vehemence of the resistance that their strongly-worded publicity campaign aroused among metal detector users. Also, they found that the public really did not understand the problem and was unaware of the real difference between archaeology and a search for interesting “things”. This was their own fault for not emphasizing what archaeology is. The detectorists successfully appealed to the public sympathy as a group being unfairly persecuted by selfish elitists and then British ‘political correctness’ did the rest.

What were the effects of this?
It is disturbing how easily portable antiquity collectors were able not only to get everyone ignoring the conservation issues and treating the whole affair as one of personal rights, but furthermore persuaded people that the people who continued to point this out and warn of the consequences should be dismissed as unprogressive“dinosaurs”. This is despite the self-evident fact that the problem is a conservation issue, the thousands of objects in metal detectorists’ personal artefact collections and on ebay come from the erosive exploitation of the country’s archaeological heritage on a massive scale. Thousands of collectors are selfishly pillaging our archaeological and historical patrimony for entertainment and profit but nobody is doing anything much to stop them.

Do you have a reliable estimate of the number of detectorists in England?
It is very difficult to find the answer, several interest groups would prefer to keep the number a secret. Basically, nobody has any idea how many artefact hunters and portable antiquity collectors there are in the British Isles today. Although some huge figures have been suggested (either by those who want to point out what a threat they are, or those who want to point out what a powerful political lobby they form), a number of factors suggest that the answer is about the 10 000 mark for the number of active metal detectorists in the United Kingdom.

Whatever the scale, it is strange that British law permits this scale of pillaging of the archaeological patrimony ?
The law differs in various parts of the British Isles. In England and Wales artefact hunting and the private collection of archaeological objects is perfectly legal as long as the landowner gives permission and certain protected sites and areas are avoided. Only items falling under the 1996 Act automatically belong to the state (the finder gets a fair reward). In Scotland it is the same but all the finds have to be surrendered to the state (for a reward). In Northern Ireland the situation is like Scotland, but in addition you have to obtain a permit to search for artefacts with a metal detector. So its very difficult to define the term “looting” in a British context, in parts of the country an artefact hunter can be acting in full accordance with the law and still be causing huge destruction to the archaeological record.

It was to help prevent the damage that the Portable Antiquities Scheme was created ten years ago. What do you think of PAS and the public awareness it has
generated ?
Britain needs some kind of mechanism to inform ALL members of the British public that they should be reporting any archaeological discoveries they make and why, and also making it easier to do so. The PAS only covers England and Wales. Scotland, for example, has a mandatory reporting system, this requirement is virtually ignored, there are just 300 reported finds a year from a country with a population of 5,1 million including several hundred metal detectorists. Certainly something like the PAS is needed there too to raise awareness and educate people. Most people finding artefacts there are obviously ignoring the law which gives the state ownership of all archaeological finds.

So people who do not report finds are they stealing?
Yes. Artefact hunters taking archaeological finds for their personal collections are in effect stealing from everybody. It’s not enough to create strong laws to deal with this problem, we need not only to enforce them properly, but above all to explain to the public what the issues are and engage public opinion to make such behaviour socially reprehensible (like for example was the case with collectors of the eggs of rare wild birds).

Isn’t this what schemes like the PAS in England and Wales are doing?
Well, not really. They have to be very careful, if they seem to be too censorious of artefact hunting and collecting, then metal detectorists will not be so keen to co-operate with them. The PAS are in a paradoxical situation, they are supposed to be representing archaeological interests, but at the same time they attempt this through persuading the artefact hunters that they support their interests. The co-operation of some of these collectors with the Scheme has indeed shielded artefact hunting from a lot of criticism in recent years. Last year David Lammy, Minister of Culture even called them all the “unsung heroes of the UK’s heritage” because of the number of interesting objects they were reporting, some of which is getting into museums. I think he did not quite understand….

English museums seem to thrive under the British system. In your opinion, are the acquisition policies of the English museums in any way linked with looting?
I think we need to understand that the vast majority of the collectable objects which metal detectorists remove from Britain’s archaeological record go into their own personal artefact collections, a lot of the things they do not want go on eBay (possibly up to 35 000 items a year). In England through the 1996 Treasure Act the state mainly acquires the shinier artefacts of gold and silver. Sadly it seems a lot of people in Britain have become convinced by the media that filling museums with things like this is what archaeology is about, and digging these things out of their archaeological context is in some way “helping” archaeology. In Scotland the state acquires a much broader (and representative) range of finds for the national collections – which is why so few Scottish metal detectorists are reporting finds.

Because they’d lose them?
Precisely. This is interesting, because as you are probably aware, one of the justifications UK metal detectorists offer for what they do is that they are “saving history”. Well, if they are, they are just saving it for themselves.

What do they claim they are saving these relics from?
They say the finds are severely threatened by being in the soil and they should be taken out to preserve them. On their websites they show a few battered and corroded coins and claim that due to modern agricultural practice this is what is happening to all the finds. But actually this argument is a smokescreen. There are tens of thousands of items on eBay each year (and several hundred thousand metal detected finds in the PAS
database) which have been in the soil for centuries and are in much better condition than the few selected items the pro-collecting campaigners show in support of their claim. This is a cynical manipulation of the evidence. Personally I think that if they want to force a change in policy there needs to be a proper survey of this phenomenon, and a proper conservation strategy adopted.

How do you respond to the claim that "metal-detecting" encourages folks to get interested in and learn more about the history of their region?
I think it is only partly true. I am not sure how much information about the history of a region you can get from collecting contextless artefacts without applying archaeological methods to the interpretation of where they come from. Just making a heap of contextless ‘old things’ on a table top tells you nothing. Actually, many British artefact
hunters are now driving considerable distances from their homes to artefact-rich sites. Many do a lot of their collecting from so-called metal detecting rallies. These are often situated right next to an important site such as a prehistoric earthwork or a Roman site and the farmer sells tickets so several hundred collectors can strip the fields of hundreds or thousands of artefacts. These people are not there to learn anything, they are there to get their hands on some artefacts.

Do you think the PAS has resolved the problems of looting in England and Wales?
No, of course not. It is astounding that in a country which offers its citizens unparalleled opportunities for collecting ancient artefacts recovered in accordance not only the law, but also according to a voluntary code of practice, there are still many people doing it irresponsibly and even illegally. There have been two court cases concerning illegal metal detector use in recent months, but the real scale of illegal activity in the UK is probably much larger. As I said earlier, in Scotland it seems there is a lot of archaeological material being found by metal detector users which is not reported. In terms of the damage done and information lost, this is just as bad as looting. What is more significant, after a decade of “outreach” and eight million pounds invested in the PAS, in England and Wales only a few thousand metal detectorists show anything to the PAS, and those that do may show only a few items of their extensive collections. The items recorded by the PAS are just the tip of an iceberg. Since it was set up, maybe three million items have been taken out of the archaeological record and 90% of them have… simply disappeared without record.

The PAS is often depicted as a huge success, what are the drawbacks of the PAS?
It certainly has worked very hard to present itself as a big success and tends to avoid discussion of statistics like the ones I quoted above. The core of its problems always has been the ad hoc manner in which it has been funded. This means that instead of concentrating on its mission and consolidating its position, it has been driven to constantly demonstrating its usefulness to get another few years’ funding. It has tended to go for quantity rather than quality, constantly boasting about how many new finds it has on its database.
The best place to find lots and lots of finds to record is of course to ask metal detectorists who have thousands of them at home. They are approached largely through clubs and rallies, that however was not the sole reason it was set up. Instead of concentrating on collectors, I’d like to see more PAS time spent educating the wider public. They deserve to be given a more balanced picture of the problems surrounding the collecting and trading of portable antiquities than they are getting at the moment.

Why are those responsible for the patrimony (heritage) of England unconcerned with protecting the archaeological record of non-scheduled sites from detectorists and looters?
I really cannot say why, I’m sorry. All I can say is that this is not what I would call “managing the heritage”, or being “responsible” for it, its just negligence. British archaeologists have perhaps been watching too many Indiana Jones films and are just confusing themselves and everybody else when they claim that raiding the archaeological record as a source of portable antiquities is a form of “archaeology for all”. It’s a very short-sighted policy and directly responsible for the continuing erosion of the archaeological record which they should be fighting to preserve.