Raleigh NC: Good Job Guys!

[Carolina Tom]

I heard about this situation, I won't mention names.

Just a quick 'thanks' to the boys in the capitol city!

Raleigh to Dix Park visitors: Stop taking our artifacts | News & Observer

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

Thanx for the link Carolina Tom.

"aggressive" md'rs ? What's the alternative? A wimpy md'r ?

"digging" ? Uh.... wait, isn't that what we do when we detect ? The clear implication of the article was the immediate connotation that this brings: Holes left. If so, shame on them. But I'm willing to bet that the MERE SIGHT of a man swinging a detector, or crouching to dig, will simply conjur up images that "he's about to leave a hole". So whether or not anyone actually DID "leave holes", it will still end up as "they're leaving holes" I bet.

"Removing artifact of historical value" ? Isn't that what ALL of us md'rs do ? Bearing in mind that a coin over 50 yrs. old would fit that broad characterization.

Thus this city council story could be replicated across the ENTIRE USA, if left to charged rhetoric like the way phrased there. For example: Go into ANY city hall ANYWHERE, and say: "Hi, can I dig holes, remove artifacts of historic value, for my own fun and profit ?" Guess what that city is going to say ?

So my response to this link is: Shame on those guys who didn't keep a frickin' lower profile in the first place. And no: trying to "pre-empt" such an occurrence is not solved by going and asking ahead of time. On the contrary, that just accelerates the very ball-rolling.

 

[cudamark]

It never ceases to amaze me when these do-gooders on city councils pontificate about how they want to "preserve our heritage" and then condemn those who actually do the research, recovery, and preservation. They never explain how leaving artifacts in the ground to rot will "preserve" them. The land in question has had Civil War artifacts on it for what? 152+ years now? Where have the archies been in all this time? Oh sure, "we're going to do an in depth excavation of the site someday" Yeah, sure they are.....

 

[Loco-Digger]

Now I have no personal experience in MDing the park in Raleigh, but I would presume someone is using the field method of digging. it is a sad state of affairs when the people in charge rather let the artifacts rot in the ground than to allow someone to rescue the artifacts and coins. Heck with tighter budgets I bet they could have a an annual paid hunt in the park to bring in some revenue. I know the difference between how one digs in a field and how one should dig in a grassy area. Last years when I went to the Diggin in PA event. I saw some MDers using the field method in the grassy yard which sort of upset me, and I am sure some MDers hunt parks the same way. When I hunt grassy areas I always try my best to make all plugs undetectable, but others think filling in the hole in any way is okay, even if the grass is covered with dirt from the hole and is an eye sore.

We can be our worst enemy at times.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.... it is a sad state of affairs when the people in charge rather let the artifacts rot in the ground than to allow someone to rescue the artifacts and coins. Heck with tighter budgets I bet they could have a an annual paid hunt in the park to bring in some revenue. .....

Good post loco-digger. I'm not convinced there was ever actually a case of "holes". Often time that word just gets tossed out there as a reason for a ban. And md'rs mutter under their breath "durned those md'rs who must've left holes". But as I say, this is often just the "go-to" reason to justify a rule or law they just made. It doesn't mean there was ever actually a case they can point to. It could just be the mental connotation someone draws for simply SEEING a man with a detector. Eg.: "oh no, he's going to leave holes".

Thus just because someone says "no because of holes" doesn't necessarily mean there was necessarily a case of it.

As for the "rot till eternity" argument we md'rs realize is true, ... yet archies won't buy it. They'll say "How do you KNOW that .... 2000 yrs. from now ... there might not be an archie pit dug right here ? And your having taken that buffalo nickel ["ripped from context"] robs future generations of learning about their past. Afterall, consider the Egyptian pyramids that .... 2000 yrs. later, they do archie work and learn cool stuff. Thus likewise you can't say for certain that a seemingly innocuous park or forest might not be in the same fashion ?" Hence the "rot till eternity" point will fall on deaf ears

As for the better idea of suggesting to the city that paying to hunt (like a "permit" that can be "bought" thus "generating revenue", etc...), that's a risky idea. Although the notion of "permits" sounds wonderful (a sort of "carte-blanche", eh?), yet notice that in any place such a notion has been implemented, it's invariably riddled with silly-ness. Eg.: "not within 20 ft. of any tree". Or "yes but you can't dig". Or "digger tool shall not exceed 4" length". Or "turn in all objects to city hall", blah blah blah. And worse yet, many cases where it simply gets revoked and md'ing banned in those locations anyhow. Why ? Because the simple fact that it's "on their radar" as something to annually be brought up in review, then... it's only a matter of time before someone in city hall thinks "gee do we really want all these yahoos tearing up our park ?" And they do away with it. Hence better to be silent on the subject, and NOT something that is on their radar.

 

[cudamark]

As for the "rot till eternity" argument we md'rs realize is true, ... yet archies won't buy it. They'll say "How do you KNOW that .... 2000 yrs. from now ... there might not be an archie pit dug right here ? And your having taken that buffalo nickel ["ripped from context"] robs future generations of learning about their past. Afterall, consider the Egyptian pyramids that .... 2000 yrs. later, they do archie work and learn cool stuff. Thus likewise you can't say for certain that a seemingly innocuous park or forest might not be in the same fashion ?" Hence the "rot till eternity" point will fall on deaf ears

My argument for this is.....what could they possibly learn that they don't already know? This in not a newly discovered site. They already know the civil war history here. The fact that they may find coins, bullets, swords, belt buckles, etc, etc, won't change a thing. Even finding out who was shooting at who from which direction....who cares? The battle is over. We know who won. We know what they wore, what they ate, that they had change in their pockets, that some lost some of their gear, I'm just happy they they DON"T have an organized archie dig here. I'd rather they didn't waste tax payer money on a historically meaningless search. Of course, the archies don't want to hear this and will push to keep everything off-limits to everyone, but them. Getting a grant to dig is their living, so, we're cutting into their livelihood. When they're successful in getting a site off-limits, we need to have a louder voice than they have to get it overturned. On sites that are still producing and are not off-limits, we need to make clean, unobtrusive recoveries, and not raise any awareness that we're anywhere near the place. Mum's the word and we need to self police our hobby if we want to continue enjoying it.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.... My argument for this is.....what could they possibly learn that they don't already know?.....

cudaMark: I've heard this line of reasoning. And along the lines of : If there was 100,000 of a certain coin minted (and they're all "identical"), then what does the addition of another one to surface tell anyone about this certain date and mint of coin ? NOTHING. Heck, even low mint coins like a 1916 D: even though a rarer date, it STILL tells you nothing more about the people who went to that park (or beach or forest or desert) than what we already know: That people were recreating there in the 1910's.

However, this too will fall on deaf ears. Because they can counter-argue that the amount of wear on it can tell you when lost. Which can be used in determining when a specific people-traffic was in the area. So it's not the OBJECT that is the "significance". It's the CONTEXT that is the "significance".

And consider, for example, the cool archie work done in the worker villages of the workers who built the pyramids of Egypt: Although those villages are a mile or two (?) upstream or down stream of the actual pyramids (hence outside the "sacred zone" of "obvious sensitive monument", right ?). You realize they're finding out a bunch of cool things about the workers who lived there and built the pyramids, which lends to us knowing things about life at that time.

So if a person 2000 yrs. ago had had your attitude, and thought "how much more does a denarius coin tell that we don't already know ??". And if those evil "looters" back then had been plucking up metal artifacts and moving them out of context, then you and I, 2000 yrs. later, wouldn't be benefiting from the cool info that arises from seemingly innocuous metal objects they finds.

How can you live with yourself ? Don't you feel the SLIGHTEST tinge of guilt for "denying those future generations" to learn about their past ? We are utterly disappointed with you. I refuse to detect with you anymore. HAAaaarrruummmppphh !

 

[enamel7]

The answer is simple. They want to extend the park out to that area and if the arcys deem it historically dig promising that park extension will be stopped for years. People have been digging there for decades and the city never cared. They want to resurface it and put concrete walkways. Historical finds are bad news for them!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

The answer is simple. They want to extend the park out to that area and if the arcys deem it historically dig promising that park extension will be stopped for years. People have been digging there for decades and the city never cared. They want to resurface it and put concrete walkways. Historical finds are bad news for them!

I think I understand what you are saying enamel7. I've run into this before where.... truth be told, a city , or a contractor on an oldtown demolition job site, might "care less" about md'ing. HOWEVER, if an archie (like the monitors that EIR's are sometimes requiring to be on jobs sites that might have an indian bone) ever got wind of you or I finding something old, then they can "red tag" a job site, or park expansion, etc..., and make a city or contractor jump through oodles of remediations, capping of sites, etc....

I've even had a few general contractors give me a "wink wink" and just say to come back after 5pm and "... wait till the archie lady with the clipboard is gone for the day".

So you might be right. And if so, this only stresses the point that: The less attention we md'rs bring to ourselves , the better. Not good that authority figures are "thinking" about the "stuff we find", and the ball-rolling effects it could have. So shame on those guys for not picking lower traffic times , eh ?

 

[cudamark]

cudaMark: I've heard this line of reasoning. And along the lines of : If there was 100,000 of a certain coin minted (and they're all "identical"), then what does the addition of another one to surface tell anyone about this certain date and mint of coin ? NOTHING. Heck, even low mint coins like a 1916 D: even though a rarer date, it STILL tells you nothing more about the people who went to that park (or beach or forest or desert) than what we already know: That people were recreating there in the 1910's.

However, this too will fall on deaf ears. Because they can counter-argue that the amount of wear on it can tell you when lost. Which can be used in determining when a specific people-traffic was in the area. So it's not the OBJECT that is the "significance". It's the CONTEXT that is the "significance".

And consider, for example, the cool archie work done in the worker villages of the workers who built the pyramids of Egypt: Although those villages are a mile or two (?) upstream or down stream of the actual pyramids (hence outside the "sacred zone" of "obvious sensitive monument", right ?). You realize they're finding out a bunch of cool things about the workers who lived there and built the pyramids, which lends to us knowing things about life at that time.

So if a person 2000 yrs. ago had had your attitude, and thought "how much more does a denarius coin tell that we don't already know ??". And if those evil "looters" back then had been plucking up metal artifacts and moving them out of context, then you and I, 2000 yrs. later, wouldn't be benefiting from the cool info that arises from seemingly innocuous metal objects they finds.

How can you live with yourself ? Don't you feel the SLIGHTEST tinge of guilt for "denying those future generations" to learn about their past ? We are utterly disappointed with you. I refuse to detect with you anymore. HAAaaarrruummmppphh !

I know your tongue is trying to poke through your cheek, but, I still need to play the straight man here.....Just what did they find in these Egyptian worker villages that was so earth shattering? Something that completely altered our perception of history? Did it change our current lives for the better because of what we've learned? As for wear on a coin being used to date an item......that's total nonsense too. I've found 5 year old coins in circulation that where worn almost smooth, and 50 year old coins that looked like they were minted last week. I've found wheat cents with little wear in a modern park or tot lot. Obviously a fresh drop, but, still an old coin. It doesn't say a thing as to how old the park is. Or the example you mentioned a while back about a coin collection lost at a school. Does finding a flowing hair coin there make that school older? Does finding a zinc cent at a 100 year old school somehow make it newer? Does it make us flabbergasted that, "Wow, these kids were carrying coins in their pockets to school!" I'm sure that some items found "in situ" would add to the history by confirming or dispelling theories of how things were, but, except for academia, nobody really cares about such minutia.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

cudamark, I'm totally on your side. I totally agree that md'rs should be digging and displaying stuff on our own mantle places. And sure ... go ahead and save some "ground zero sacred monument" stuff for the archies, eh ? I mean, EVEN YOU wouldn't be an advocate of being able to pillage Shiloh, Bodie, Ghettysburg, etc.... would you ? I mean, *certainly* some of the coins and buttons and such that they get at those places (and the worker villages @ upstream from the pyramids) do indeed provide for cool stories and studies.

Because otherwise, to take what you're saying to it's logical extreme , then why not use that logic to open up Bodie to md'ing ? Afterall, what more "earth-shattering info" is anyone gonna learn by digging a Bodie saloon token, or seated dime, etc... ? Yet as you can well gather, it will fall on deaf ears.

And as for why this same mindset gets applied/extended beyond those "ground zero sacred monuments" to be entire state parks, and entire forests, etc... (instead of the isolated ghost town or battle site within in), here's why:

Put yourself in their shoes: It would just be an endless cat and mouse game of the "camel's nose in the tent". Even if they accepted your stellar logic (that cudamark would avoid their archie pits and ground zero admittedly sensitive site), yet guess what cudamark and all us other md'rs would do ? We'd perpetually see how close we can get to cool sites. Afterall, we hunt old coins, not new coins. So is the circumference of distance required from an obvious site going to be 30 ft. ? 30 yards? A mile ? etc... In other words, it would perpetually boils down to a semantics debate of "what constitutes sensitive/sacred" versus "what's innocuous where no one is harmed and it rots forever" .

So you can hardly blame them for "making it simple" and just saying "no within the entire borders". Presto, problem solved. No endless bantering about how old a target can or can't be. No endless bantering about how close to sensitive is "too close", etc...

But the REALITY is often different than technical rules. For example, if you're way out in the middle of nowhere on NFS or BLM land, you'll never run into a purist archie who knows or cares about such things. Never run into an archie armed with a calculator poised to do the math on the ages of your coins. So rather than us just sitting around and "lamenting our lack of freedoms", and "dry dusty minutia that only 1 in 1,000,000 people knows or cares about", I will simply choose to go detecting. Sure I don't throw caution to the wind. Sure there are some people who I will wait till they've left before I start. But like nose-picking, sometimes you just have to be discreet on your timing. Then presto: no one's bothered.

 

[cudamark]

If it's a known archy site where a dig is in progressed or planned, sure, place it off limits and fence or define the boundaries so we don't hunt there. Anywhere else should be fair game if it's public property. I tend to agree with the English rules in this respect. If you find ANYTHING older than X number of years (in their case 50 years, but, I think 100 is more realistic), let the experts evaluate the item and decide if it's something of historic value or whether a museum would like to display it. If so, buy it from the finder. If not, let the finder keep it. They've found some interesting sites previously unknown by detectorists stumbling over it accidentally. I would even include those places you mentioned. I still see no point in keeping anything rotting underground when it can be recovered and enjoyed by someone. I'd love to hunt Bodie, Shiloh, Gettysburg, etc, and I'd also be happy to let them keep everything I find if they plan on displaying those items. If it isn't important enough to buy if from me and put it on display, let me have it.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

If it's a known archy site where a dig is in progressed or planned, sure, place it off limits and fence or define the boundaries so we don't hunt there. Anywhere else should be fair game if it's public property....

Ah but you see, the devil is in the details. Notice the above bold print in your quote. Perhaps it's not "planned" NOW. But how do you KNOW that a future archie (2000 yrs. from now) won't dig on that exact spot ?? Hence SHAME ON YOU See the continuing problem ? Your good points will fall on deaf ears. Thus .... the less purist archies see and think of you and me, the better.

.... let the experts evaluate the item and decide if it's something of historic value or whether a museum would like to display it. If so, buy it from the finder. If not, let the finder keep it. ....

But you're not putting yourself in the shoes of "them". Why should they be bothered with reams of bureaucracy of hiring "experts" to "evaluate" and "decide" etc... Can you blame them for making it simple and just saying "no to all" ? Why oh why go through all the "hair-splitting" if you were them ?

...... I tend to agree with the English rules in this respect... .

Here's the common misconception of the "English rules": The stuff they're "evaluating" and "buying" is off of PRIVATE PROPERTY. Those "English/British rules do NOTHING to open up public land there for md'ing. Trust me, they've got monuments and sites that are JUST as "off-limits" as here. Try md'ing around Stonehenge and see what happens.

Here in the USA, if you find cool old stuff on farmer bob's land, that's TOTALLY BETWEEN YOU AND FARMER BOB how to split or sell or whatever. The govt. and archies are not involved. Hence the English system you speak is NOT what you think it is (some sort of carte-blanche to md public sites, or lack of intrusion by purist archies).

 

[cudamark]

When I speak of "planned", I mean a site has been designated and a dig WILL be done (pending approval, funding, etc), not just wishful thinking and blanket coverage of a vague area. As for the English method, I should have explained my proposal in more detail. I would like their private land rules applied to our public land, except we wouldn't be splitting the value with the government. If they want the item, then pay it's fair market value. Who knows, the item may have been dropped by one of my ancestors and doesn't belong to anyone but me anyway! It seems to me that they don't have any more right to it than I do. I'm sure there are many aged archies that would love to be able to just research and evaluate items without having to do the backbreaking work of actually digging them up. They're already on somebody's payroll, why not put them to work?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Mark, I don't disagree with your notions/hopes. I too think we should be allowed free reign and that archies would be at our beck & call to evaluate, buy, etc... (hey, saves them time from digging, as you say).

But it goes against every fiber of their being. The way you and dig (to just drop to our knees and dig it), is TOTALLY against every fiber of their being. Thus your ideas will fall on deaf ears. In fact, to even propose stuff to them (ie.: to put md'rs on their radar) by presenting ideas such as this, is risky. They just start dreaming up ALL THE MORE anti-md'ing rhetoric.

This is sort of like trying to get the sport of "Rodeo" and the "PETA" people to find "common ground". It will just not happen. The ideals of each are diametrically opposed. Oh sure, once in awhile you do find a cool archie who's not a "purist". But otherwise .... the less they think of us, the better. JMHO

 

[cudamark]

Agreed, keep quiet.........until laws get passed (or proposed) that ban detecting in a certain area. Then we should squawk to high heaven. Though archaeologists have the inside track with politicians and bureaucrats, I believe we outnumber them as a whole. One thing politicians do quite well is count votes.