Your comment is clearly one of hate and disrespect and not one of academic merit or discourse in reality. Congratulations. You made a fool of yourself.

Finding a crusader cross from the 13th century inside of a chevrolet aircleaner housing convieniently underneath a concrete slab.. Oh, and random spanish pieces of eight and silver coins
along with it, NONE of which would remotely be in the correct time frame or global region to end up inside a chevrolet air cleaner assembly on a factory site-
This is complete nonsense..

The show is SALTED. They are CLEARLY SALTING these finds in most cases and I would be interested in tracking down some of these “buyers” shown eagerly parting with 5 grand to possess some rocks pulled out of a creek. I doubt anyone is going to easily find a buyer for those alleged ‘artifacts’ without a LOT of effort, and the price range would be in the scale of 50 bucks, not thousands for a stone with a ground down center purported to be a corn grinding mortar.

These fraudsters are clearly planting or bringing with them some ‘sweeteners’ to pad out their finds of a wrench, and a beat up old auto grill, and anyone who has done any metal detecting knows that there is a lot of days you find NOTHING of note and certainly nothing of value.

Unless you are raiding historical sites with known payloads of artifacts, you are not going to be able to make a living doing this, and to suggest they are pulling in 15k each trip is nonsensical.

They could not find enough, without the TV sponsorship, to pay for gas, hotels and their bills, using this method.
My guess is, they are SALTING virtually all the more desireable finds, and then using the payments to homeowners of 2k or under as a cheap means to gain traction for the show to stay in production.

Anyone who sees the show knows they are guaranteed 1200-2000 grand for letting their property be used in production, and this salting of a couple items and 2 grand to the homeowner is simply the cost of doing business for the shows producers..

Far, far more patience than I have.

back to the facts we get from archaeologist ..are they not same as doctors, mechanics, appraisers ect. Put 5 on same site and all will have a different theory …most of it is theory anyway and thats been proven

I don’t think you know the definition of theory as a scientist might use it. The lay-person will say “theory” when what they really mean is hypothesis or guess. For an archaeologist, theory is the conceptual framework by which he or she goes about obtaining data. In general, however, the data retrieved are not different -its the interpretations of these data which can differ. Marxists will interpret the data with a eye toward how societies develop modes of production; processualists will rely heavily on hypotheses and testing with an expectation of arriving at a close approximation of the truth as a result of the evidence; post-processualists treat data as though all hypothesis testing is automatically biased by the researcher/archaeologist; and so on.

None are necessarily wrong or right and, indeed, there is much to be gained from an understanding of these and other theoretical frameworks. But the data are the data. My own interpretation is subject to peer review and, if I’ve reported all the data, anyone can apply a different theoretical framework and, perhaps, a different interpretation will result.

But I’ve been at more than one archaeological site where there were more than 5 archaeologists on hand. And you know what? We didn’t disagree on the basic facts of the site. It’s hard to interpret most things differently when it comes to raw data. A discolored level of matrix (dirt) has a given Munsel value that can be agreed on. A potsherd has characteristics that can likewise be objectively established (shape, color, slip style, material, etc.). A hearth can be objectively placed in space and time using a total station and radiocarbon dating the level its found at. These are not things that are so theoretical that “5 [archaeologists] on the same site [...] will have a different theory.”

I’m very sorry to say it, but the average hobbyist and the average metal detectorist simply doesn’t have the expertise to do more than shoot coins and surface collect arrowheads. But I do not dispute that it is perfectly legal for them to do so on private lands where they have permission. Indeed, it is completely legal for them to scrape the land with a backhoe and sift it through a series of screens if they so choose if they’re on private lands with permission.

What I am also saying, however, is that this legality doesn’t make it right or ethical. But I recognize that these are ethical considerations that I can’t expect the hobbyist or even many “diggers” to understand if they aren’t aware of all the angles. Part of me would like to see legislation in place that prohibits even private landowners from abusing cultural resources on their property. Except this would probably not be Constitutional. Instead, it might be preferable to raise the public consciousness on the issue of cultural heritage and how important it is to protect even the smallest sites for proper evaluation -an evaluation that may or may not include excavation.

Entire cultures have probably been lost to us because of our inattention. We scrape the land away and install buildings and freeways. We inundate valleys with water by damming rivers. We put value on “relics” and the only thing left of a culture is on Ebay or a museum of “art” where provenance reads, “from the private collection of Mr. Big Donor.” Had we the opportunity to see the artifacts (not “relics,” but material remains -artifacts) in the place, position, and condition they were last deposited, we stand a better chance of piecing together the culture in much the same way forensic anthropologists do on shows like CSI.

I didn’t get, however, your statement that “archaeologists are not the same as doctors, mechanics, appraisers, etc.” I’m not sure what you mean by that. Of course they aren’t. They’re archaeologists. Indeed these occupations are all very different from each other. But I suspect you had a different meaning.

s, appraisers,ect.??? Put 5 on same job and all going to report different theorie s about. the
site they sre on …and