Saving Artifacts from the Archeologists

More revelations of archeological malpractice from England. These archeologists who yatter on at collectors for "destroying context" are hiding one huge dirty secret. In England a lot of metal detectorists work with archeologists and a whistleblower called Steve has revealed what he has observed as a result in a comment on 'The responsible Metal Detectorist' blog. Be prepared to be shocked. Instead of preserving context on the sites they dig:

Soils stripping done by a 360 excavator bites up to 50cms at a time and detectors do not reach that depth so items are only recovered from the top 10 to 15 cms. This of course only finds the metallic items and not the lithics or ceramic remains which then end up on the spoil heap.

So in preserving these artifacts which would otherwise end up in landfill, collectors are acting as avocational curators, preventing archeological philistines discarding them in their pursuit f personal ambition and academic glory at the cost of the global cultural heritage. We have to stop archeologists destroying context.