>>216369Be warned, this place is crawling with self-important hicks who feel persecuted by the government because they can't metal detect at Gettysburg. The opposite side of this issue is this guy:
>>216384 and neither side really communicates with one another.
Both sides really need to find a compromise. I've been on an archaeological dig and I metal detect as a hobby. Metal detectorists need to exercise discretion when selecting their sites, so anything of any historical importance should be off limits. There are enough random farm houses and old carnival grounds to go around. They also need to drop the idiotic "we're saving history!" battlecry. If those pennies and cow bells were truly historically significant (which they aren't) then having them sit, undocumented, in a basement is no better than being in the ground.
At the same time, archaeologists need to reach out to metal detectorists more to teach them artifact preservation and record keeping. It pains me to watch youtube videos of metal detectorists dig up an old coin and then furiously rub the shit out of it to read the date as a soon as possible. The only response I ever hear from archaeologists is that all metal detectorists are vandals/looters/scum. Archaeologist will never have the power to stop people from digging stuff up, so they ought to make the best of it.
tl;dr metal detecting is fun in and of itself but the "culture" around it is shitty. Ever notice how the "culture" of stuff often ruins them?
