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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Darkwing Manor, post: 2248092, member: 738&quot;]Hollyblue, as an avocational archeologist and a museum curator (retired) I&#039;d be curious to know the details of your experience. Who was &quot;we&#039; and what were the circumstances of the dig? Perhaps I can shed light on their response by getting more details from my own experiences working with &quot;finds&quot; collections.</p><p>What many people do not understand is that the relationship of a find to its surrounding man-made and geographic features (context), is the single most important concept and discipline in an archeological investigation. This is where metal detecting and indiscriminate digging can cause the greatest harm, because the item is removed from it&#039;s context. An overly simplistic analogy would be if I tore one page out of a book and asked you use it to reconstruct the whole story. There are some circumstances; for eg: in disturbed, overploughed areas, wash outs or flood and tidal plains; where surface or detected finds can be very useful as a diagnostic tool for the archeologists. </p><p>I&#039;ve posted a link to an article that describes context much better than I can. <a href="http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/blog/ncrc/2011/04/19/take-only-pictures-the-importance-of-context-in-archaeology/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/blog/ncrc/2011/04/19/take-only-pictures-the-importance-of-context-in-archaeology/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/blog/ncrc/2011/04/19/take-only-pictures-the-importance-of-context-in-archaeology/</a></p><p>Well-trained and conscientious detectorists and field walkers have formed very beneficial partnerships with archeologists in recent years for the benefit of all. There is a time and a place for both. Education is the key![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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