Metal detecting is a continual source of concern amongst archaeologists. While many famous discoveries have been made in this way, at the other end of the spectrum are reckless criminals who covertly ransack ancient sites with the sole intention of selling whatever they can find for personal gain.

From:
Daily Mail

Thieves who looted coins from ancient Roman site handed Britain’s first ASBO banning them from METAL DETECTING
Peter Cox and Darren West handed suspended sentences for theft
Caught digging up land on English Heritage site in Northamptonshire
By Hugo Gye
PUBLISHED: 15:41, 3 January 2013 | UPDATED: 07:37, 4 January 2013

Two thieves have become the first people in Britain to be handed ASBOs banning them from metal detecting.

Peter Cox and Darren West were given the unique punishment after they looted ancient coins from a Roman site belonging to English Heritage.
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There is nothing inherently bad about using a metal detector – but the efforts of many amateur treasure hunters are far closer to looting of the sites than to a documented archaeological excavation.

From:
Yorkshire Post

Battle to stop time bandits selling off our history
Published on Saturday 30 June 2012 06:00

SPECIALIST investigators have launched a nationwide crackdown on rogue metal detectorists amid fears that centuries-old artefacts are being sold on the internet in a global blackmarket trade.

Archaeological experts have revealed there is evidence to suggest historical finds are being bought across the world in a lucrative illicit trade after illegal treasure hunters known as “nighthawks” have targeted internationally-renowned locations.
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For some, metal detecting is an innocent hobby with an occasional chance of making a big find. For many archaeologists though, the practice requires much tighter regulation, to stop illicit digging of artefacts without any proper excavation or cataloguing of the finds taking place. New programmes in the US, American Digger & Diggers, both seem to be encouraging this fairly carefree attitude to digging up the past & a there are a fears that a new series in the UK could also serve to publicise it.

Paul Barford has already written quite a bit about this program on his blog.

From:
Guardian

TV treasure hunt show to pick Britain’s most important archaeological find
Britain’s Secret Treasures on ITV to follow experts as they judge the merits of antiquities discovered in the UK in the last 15 years
Maev Kennedy
Monday 26 March 2012 13.17 BST

Historians and archaeologists are arguing over the single most historically important archaeological find among almost a million objects discovered in the UK in the last 15 years. Contenders include the heap of glittering Anglo-Saxon gold of the Staffordshire Hoard, a scruffy little coin that proved the existence of a previously unknown Roman emperor, a bronze token that some claim entitled the bearer to the illustrated services in a Roman brothel, a stone hand axe, or the eerie shimmering beauty of the Crosby Garrett Roman helmet.

The debate will be followed over a week of primetime television programmes being made for ITV, Britain’s Secret Treasures, to be broadcast in July and presented by the historian Bettany Hughes and the veteran journalist Michael Buerk in his first appearance on the channel.
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