ABSTRACT
The advent of cheap and effective metal detectors in the 1970s was initially regarded by archaeologists in Britain as an unmitigated and potentially overwhelming disaster. Britain is a country where archaeological sites may average as many as ten per square kilometre, and are so frequent in places that the concept of archaeological landscapes had to be invented to comprehend them (Stoertz 1997). The prospect of large bands of archaeologically untrained metal-detecting hobbyists systematically hoovering up artefacts from them promised loss of archaeological information on an unprecedented scale. It seemed likely to lead to increased uncontrolled intervention in archaeological sites, removal of artefacts from stratified archaeological contexts, disassociation of objects from their find spots (Addyman 1995: 167) and the disappearance of the artefacts themselves into unnamed private collections, the antiquities trade and abroad.
