14th January 2008, 11:43 PM
I thought it was a good programme and quite an accurate assessment of the 'state of play' as it is at the moment. Resolutions and the best way to move forward are complicated and will not be easy, but the programme provides a useful 'discussion document'.
A couple of points:
I thought it was interesting when Tony said what can the ARCHAEOLOGISTS do to resolve the situation at the end. Is this correct?
The way the programme was edited, I had less sympathy with the younger detectorist, who called himself a 'treasure hunter'. However, when the guy was talking to Tony on site towards the end of the programme he seemed anything but a simple 'treasure hunter'. I then had the impression that the archaeologsts could have helped themselves by taking the detectorists to the pub right at the start and just having a good chat about everything. It seemed like the archaeologists expected to be trusted (?as professionals) but that the detectorists had to earn trust. Perhaps this was a accurate assessment on the part of the archaeologists, but the detectorists didn't need to be made to feel like that, hence the (?) missed opportunities on site.
By the end of the programe I was left with a niggling feeling that there must be better ways of making some detectorists want to be involved in reporting and recording their finds, and that one way might be for archaeollogists to follow up their interests, even if they seem bizzarre at first.
Im sure a lot of the above impressions are from the editing of the programme, so Im not even sure of my actual opinions on things. Nevertheless it was very interesting. Why dont Time Team do more of these programmes when a project is followed for a while rather than the (in my opinion) now approaching stale 3-day format. The programmes I have liked where they did longer shoots were in London and Ely (plus some others I forget), a lot less lightweight.
Finally, the summing up of the site results seemed a bit strange. They said there was almost nothing but then didnt discuss the pits with Viking finds in them or whether the had carbon dated the burial. Also, there are a number of pre historic sites including enclosures re-used for burial in the e-med period in that part of the country. Surely at the very least some similarities/contrasts with other examples and their significance could have been drawn?
A couple of points:
I thought it was interesting when Tony said what can the ARCHAEOLOGISTS do to resolve the situation at the end. Is this correct?
The way the programme was edited, I had less sympathy with the younger detectorist, who called himself a 'treasure hunter'. However, when the guy was talking to Tony on site towards the end of the programme he seemed anything but a simple 'treasure hunter'. I then had the impression that the archaeologsts could have helped themselves by taking the detectorists to the pub right at the start and just having a good chat about everything. It seemed like the archaeologists expected to be trusted (?as professionals) but that the detectorists had to earn trust. Perhaps this was a accurate assessment on the part of the archaeologists, but the detectorists didn't need to be made to feel like that, hence the (?) missed opportunities on site.
By the end of the programe I was left with a niggling feeling that there must be better ways of making some detectorists want to be involved in reporting and recording their finds, and that one way might be for archaeollogists to follow up their interests, even if they seem bizzarre at first.
Im sure a lot of the above impressions are from the editing of the programme, so Im not even sure of my actual opinions on things. Nevertheless it was very interesting. Why dont Time Team do more of these programmes when a project is followed for a while rather than the (in my opinion) now approaching stale 3-day format. The programmes I have liked where they did longer shoots were in London and Ely (plus some others I forget), a lot less lightweight.
Finally, the summing up of the site results seemed a bit strange. They said there was almost nothing but then didnt discuss the pits with Viking finds in them or whether the had carbon dated the burial. Also, there are a number of pre historic sites including enclosures re-used for burial in the e-med period in that part of the country. Surely at the very least some similarities/contrasts with other examples and their significance could have been drawn?