Perhaps some comments should come from a country where metal detecting is
largely legal and where, whether we like it or not, an important contribution
has been made.
 
The position in England and Wales (not in Scotland or Northern Ireland which
have different legal systems) is essentially that metal detecting is legal
provided it is not carried out on a scheduled archaeological site or anceint
monmument and that the detector suer has the permission of the landowner. With
the execption of gold and silver, where our creaky Treasure Trove laws apply,
the finds belong to the landowner. Problems arise here because a farmer could
be a tenant of some or all of the land and the owner difficult to identify -
perhaps an insurance company.
 
That said, in an area where a good relationship between museums, archaeologists
and detectors recording can be of a reasonable standard. The nature of the
archaeological record in England and Wales means that there are many isolated
or stray finds, often without context as they are in ploughsoil, and the vital
piece of data is the exact location of the find spot. A significant number of
sites is discovered each year by metal detectors and there appears to be one
class of site which is only discoverable with metal detectors. Some users have
become experts in their own right in certain classes of material, and one user
is charting the early Saxon iron industry in Essex by adapting his detector to
pick up the slag cakes from slag-pit furnaces.
 
There is, of course, a down side. Sites are looted and wrecked, and there is in
some areas serious under-reporting, especially of coin hoards, and there have
been activities which are downright criminal. A recent report published by
English Heritage studies the impact of metal detecting on English archaeology;
this is recommended reading.
 
For a personal view, as a specialist in prehistoric metalwork in Britain I have
had a great deal of benefit form metal detector activity. In particular,
intensive detecting in limited areas is giving us a much better idea of the
true survival and distribution of Bronze Age metalwork in the landscape, and on
the foreshore.
 
Peter Northover
Dept. of Materials, University of Oxford
[log in to unmask]
 
P.S. Never let metal detectors over your spoil heap at the end of an excavation
- it is just too shaming!