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| Green waste bin photo: Bidgee |
James Gerrard, Liz Caldwell and Alisa Kennedy, Green Waste and Archaeological Geophysics, Archaeological Prospection Volume 22, Issue 2, pages 139–142, April/June 2015. (abstract and phys.org article). The metal-detectorist view is further covered in the blog Ban 'Green' Waste being dumped on our Countryside!!
As I can add nothing new to the topic, itself, I think it better to treat the subject more from the McLuhan viewpoint: how is this medium treating the subject of green waste?
If you Google "green waste" you will likely see several pages promoting the practice starting with a focus on your own geographical location and spreading outward from there; related searches will provide more of the same promotion and you will have to mine very deeply into the search results to find much of the negative aspect dealt with as a main topic.
There is nothing wrong with any specialist looking at green waste with the focus of their own interest: the field archaeologist writes of concerns with magnetometer surveys; Dean and other metal detectorists are concerned that fields become unsearchable. I can expand on the latter from my own interest in Celtic coin types and varieties: the more variations that I can find, the more I can apply my own methods. The metal detectorist has provided me the most valuable source of all for these.
Despite tabloid journalism saying "what the public thinks", there really is no public as a source of opinion, there are only cultural frames and no one shares exactly the same set of cultural frames with anyone else on earth. It is only by ignoring quite a number of cultural frames that the illusion can be created.
Much really depends on what terms are searched and it is advisable to be aware of the fact that the web has a tendency to proliferate tabloid practices and then turn these into memes.
Dean will be very busy over the next few days and thus might have little opportunity to contribute, but I will be back tomorrow with more in this series.
John's Coydog Community page
Hi John:
ReplyDeleteGreen Waste, eh? In Poland I'm told, it is referred to as 'Barford'.
Best
John Howland
England
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI was wondering where you had got to. I hope you are enjoying the series on Dean.
Best,
John
Hello John:
ReplyDeleteGreat series. Keep 'em coming. He's doing a great deal for the common heritage record, far more I suspect, than the airheads on the lunatic fringe of orthodox archaeology. I look forward to reading the next instalment.
Best
John Howland
England
Thanks John,
ReplyDeleteDean has certainly done that! I wish that I could track down the British government document which stated that just about everything we know about Dobunni coin distribution patterns is due to Dean's recording of his finds. Personally, he has given me enough data about Dobunni sites for me to formulate a number of hypotheses about the tribe and their relationship with other tribes; the existence of an important route along the Jurassic Way to Iceni territory (far more than just a trade route); the secure knowledge that the Dobunni were the manufacturers of the Thurrock potins and that these were "tin alloy ingots" to provide (in a partially overland route) the Massalian Greeks (Marseilles) with tin at a time that Carthaginian pirates were raiding shipping route tin shipments to that city, and that this started a Gaulish tin economy which eventually collapsed when tin started to be obtained from Spain. There is enough material from the sample I give of Dean's data recording to occupy a lifetime, let alone a book or two.
Sneak preview: today's episode will be about the Bodvoc gold stater and I have more episodes already planned.
Best,
John