Friday 30 October 2015

Dean Crawford — Living among the Dobunni: a story of a wasted opportunity

A pair of Anglo-Saxon saucer brooches found in topsoil that
had been removed from an archaeological site prior to
recording and spread on a local farmer's field.
photo: Dean Crawford
"One of my colleagues has spent most of his life metal detecting the fields around Bidford on Avon, Warwickshire, meticulously recording all his finds. Hundreds of his Anglo Saxon finds have greatly enhanced what we know about the area at that time and a massive amount of numismatic information has been gleaned from his coin finds.

"About twenty five years ago, archaeological excavations were carried out behind the Anglo-Saxon public house in Bidford. The archaeologists were asked by my colleague, Jim, if he could assist, if only by scanning the discarded topsoil. The answer was a defiant NO. What a wasted opportunity.

"If the archaeologists had as much knowledge of the area as Jim, they would have known that the site in question was disturbed in the nineteenth century, so a great deal of what they would had been looking for would already be unstratified and possibly nearer the surface. Yet, a deep layer of topsoil was stripped and discarded.

"By a strange coincidence, this topsoil was immediately shipped out in large trucks and dumped onto the nearby farm, where Jim actually had permission from the landowner. So he did get to scan the spoil after all.

"What he found was quite amazing; many late Roman and Anglo-Saxon finds. One has to wonder how this would have confused any future investigation on this nearby land. Or would it? perhaps the archaeologists would discard the topsoil for a second time, and dump it on a third farm? and continue on like this.

"A disturbed context, or not, there was so much knowledge and information lost by the archaeologists using this method. Yet Jim scanned the discarded soil, recorded all the Roman coins, Roman brooches, Anglo-Saxon Sceats and important brooches. The last time I spoke to Jim, he had recorded at least sixty early Anglo-Saxon coins, including many new varieties according to the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. [these would have been recorded in the Department of Coins and Medals' Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds]

"I only posses one photograph from back then: two large Anglo-Saxon saucer brooches that he found in the soils that were transferred from the excavation site, which would have certainly been from a grave.

"If only those archaeologists had not been influenced by their prejudices and outdated education. My message to archaeologists and people still with this mindset is to think outside the box. Don't blindly believe everything you are told; question everything; and use your own intuition. Only then can we move forward from the old ignorant ways.

John's Coydog Community page

6 comments:

  1. Hello John:

    Getting some archaeologists, or those who portray themselves as such, to think outside of the box is like trying to nail jelly to the ceiling. We are dealing with Luddites, of the kind who have relinquished with their bizarre views any hold over archaeology. These are spent people. Leave them in their academic squalor and move on! The Council for British Archaeology is at a crossroads. Hahahah! No guts...no glory...Mike!

    Popular public involvement has arrived and they don't like it. The days when the public accepted willy-nilly their interpretations is over. I rather suspect the 'Anonymous' will be livid and be writing in high dudgeon any time soon.

    Hold the line.

    Regards

    John Howland
    England

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  2. Hi John,

    Evolution requires adaptation. It seems that some archaeologists are not only facing extinction, but are trying to convince other archaeologists to join them. Some are so thick that they believe that all it requires to do as good a job as people like Dean is to know how to operate a metal detector. Having years of experience metal-detecting in local areas; understanding the finds to the level of a dedicated collector all seems irrelevant to them. Yet, they claim to be able to interpret the past. It seems to me that they have a hard enough time interpreting the present...

    Best,

    John

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    Replies
    1. The fact that the two brooches were found well out of their archaeological context - ripped from the ground by a mechanical digger - renders them academically worthless. That's precisely what some of the more dense archaeologists to which you refer, holler, shout and accuse detectorists of doing.

      Yet, thousands of tons of unfiltered topsoil are treated similarly and scattered along with priceless artefacts (intrinsically and financially) elsewhere, thus polluting any future archaeological record should they come to light.

      Can we really leave the heritage in the butter-fingered hands of archaeology? Only if they measure up to certain standards. If as academic colossus Paul Barford writes on his surprisingly narcissistic blog that, "Half the population is average IQ or below," then does he/we/they have a duty to ensure that all archaeologists pass the Mensa IQ test to ensure they fall into the 'Above Average IQ' quotient? Or is this simply far-Left Socialism racing to the topsoil of reason?

      Best

      John Howland
      England


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    2. This is a really excellent response, John, and fits in well with many thoughts I have had about how archaeology is currently practised and its weaknesses. For example, the evidence is very clear that psychologically extraverted materialists are attracted to field archaeology (but not theoretical or teaching archaeology). This is because they both need material evidence and have a distrust of anything as ethereal as art and religion.

      Art historical data is commonly dismissed and their overused term "ritual" attempts to take the religious and turn in into the practical/material. After thirty years of studying Jungian psychology, this becomes very easy for me to see.

      Dean has just sent me the the contents for Monday's post. It will be the best so far, on so many different levels, including what you have written above!

      Best,

      John

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  3. Hi John:

    There's another angle to all of this; one of my friends in the upper echelons of archaeology (yes, I do have them) told me many years ago that one 'roman' archaeologist, (citing an example) has no truck with any period later than 4th Century AD and gladly tears through the upper layers just to get to his precious 'roman' era. Everything from 4th Century AD, along with the topsoil goes to God knows where.

    Many know this vandalism goes on and I know the name of at least one of these vandals. Others in archaeology are as appalled as I am, yet fearing for future sponsorship, wisely stay silent. Some excavation Directors have egos the size of British Columbia and are not to be crossed...except perhaps by collectors and others who don't give a toss for archaeological reputations.

    Maybe the wind of change is blowing?

    Regards

    John Howland
    England

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    Replies
    1. Hi John,

      I am reminded of the amount of history demolished on the Acropolis at Athens in order to provide a better view of the Parthenon. This included a Byzantine church! (Yannis Hamilakis, _The Nation and its Ruins_)

      Best,

      John

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