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Silent Bob
Supervisor Level
United Kingdom
46 Posts |
 Posted - 25/09/2008 : 16:58:32
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I'm an archaeologist (there, I've said it). In the past few years I carried out a large metal detecting survey with a number of detectorists. I became very good friends with one of them who had been detecting in my County for a good 15 years and had found a lot of quality stuff. Very sadly he died, at a relatively young age but before he did he asked me to look through all of his finds. Naturally he had many of his own sites which he had been visiting for years and from which he had found lots of great stuff. He also recorded most of it with the PAS and I consider him a 'good' detecorist. However, the organisation of his finds was clearly an unfinished work in progress. Many finds were in bags with small sticky labels on, which were rapidly becoming non-stick and dropping off. Also he had his own somewhat impenitrable site code system, which is fine if you know where the site was. Luckily I can match a large numnber of his finds with PAS records but it is still not easy.
Therefore, might I suggest that anyone who has a large number of finds which they want people to gain information from considers organising them in a way that someone else can easily understand. For example, if you have a good Roman site covering 3 different fields then perhaps giving that site a name, bagging finds individually and then boxing them, perhaps by field name or your own field numbers, as a start. Then make sure there is a copy of a map showing the fields and approximate site location in each box. Map references are obviously desirable but I am aware how difficult to do this is in the field. If possible use a hand held gps. I only wish I had seen his collection and worked with him before he died, then I wouldn't have the problem. Preferably don't put stuff in a box that says Jim's field or Top field etc on it as important location information becomes a bit tricky to find out. For the average archaeologst finding 20 Romnan coins on a site would be considered quite good so you can imagine how depressing it might be to find a tiny bag stuffed with more than that which simply says Site 3 on it.
All I'm saying is, 'do it whilst you still can.'
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Organise your finds
