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Portable Antiquities Scheme Reaches 1,000,000 & Farmer on Skye Doesn’t Cairn! - WB 21st Dec 2021
95 Plays2 years ago
Welcome to Watching Brief. As the name implies, each week Marc (Mr Soup) & Andy Brockman of the Pipeline (Where history is tomorrow's news) cast an eye over news stories, topical media and entertainment and discuss and debate what they find.
Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/archaeosoup
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0:00 Introduction & Link of the Week
4:00 One Millionth P.A.S. Record!
22:13 Skye Farmer Wrecks Cairn
45:43 Mike Ingram: An Appreciation
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Link of the Week:
Raiders Temple Escape in LEGO:
https://tinyurl.com/mryxfp4r
***
1 Million records of archaeological finds made by public now recorded:
https://finds.org.uk/news/story/307
Lincolnshire pendant is millionth archaeological find by public:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-59607288
Portable Antiquities Scheme logs millionth archaeological find:
***
Farmer fined for digging up ancient burial cairn:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-59653333
Scot fined £18k for destroying ancient cairn help his building project:
Skye farmer who destroyed ancient cairn for topsoil fined £18,000:
***
RIP Mike Ingram:
http://thepipeline.info/blog/2021/12/18/mike-ingram-an-appreciation/
Recommended
Transcript
Welcome to Soupcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Soupcast, coming to you from Archaeosoup Towers. By popular demand, we're taking selected videos from the Archaeosoup back catalogue and bringing them to you as convenient podcasts. As the name implies, with Archaeosoup you get a bit of everything thrown into the pot. Archaeology, discussion, humour and debate. You can find out more at archaeosoup.com. So sit back, relax and enjoy our hearty helping of Archaeosoup.
Omicron in London and Staying Festive
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Watching Brief for the week of the 20th of December 2021. I am joined as ever by my amazing co-host Mr Andy Brockman. Good afternoon Andy. Good afternoon from Plague City.
00:00:54
Speaker
Plague City, indeed, yes. For our viewer at home, London is a hotspot, a global hotspot, in fact, world beating, one might say at the moment, when it comes to the Omicron variant. But here, at least at Arceo Soup Towers, we're getting in the festive mood. We're slightly more decorated than Mr Brockman appears to be. And also, the in-laws are
In-laws and Christmas Lockdowns
00:01:21
Speaker
on their way.
00:01:21
Speaker
Oh, as you might guess from the bottle of whiskey on the shelf behind me, I'm going to be absolutely lit up later. Andy the red-nosed archaeologist.
00:01:40
Speaker
In our case, yes, they've just they've just boarded the ferry about half an hour ago from Northern Ireland. So it's going to be great to see them. Yeah, I guess we'll see what happens in terms of Christmas lockdowns, though. I mean, that might be on the cards. We may be they may be with us into January. Who knows?
00:02:01
Speaker
Well I mean I'm surprised to hear actually you're not flying the in-laws in by reindeer sleigh, I've given you a head wear. Well yeah I mean I know this hat does give me a certain amount of power but at the moment I'm trying to just maintain a stable internet connection for ours in call so no they're getting the ferry and they'll be here. Like Father Christmas I'll believe that when I see it. As will I, as will
Indiana Jones Lego Model
00:02:29
Speaker
I.
00:02:29
Speaker
Now this week we have, anyway, yeah, regardless of whether we're in a plague city or wearing magical hats, we have our ongoing watching brief and we have a couple of stories that may well bring a smile to your face or indeed as... Or a tear to your eye.
00:02:50
Speaker
Potentially. Potentially, yes. It depends on how you view it. A bit like an onion in that sense. Nicely cooked onion in butter, very sweet, delicious, but a raw onion can be a bit of cervic and make you cry, perhaps. But before that though, before we dive into those two segments, the second of which incidentally has a special guest this week as well, who may also be joining us for the recording of the Muppet of the Month segment.
PAS Annual Report Milestone
00:03:15
Speaker
I'd just like to highlight the link of the week. This week is a bit of fun. As I say, we're in Christmas week and it is a link highlighting a fairly, you know, relatively old build actually. This is a story that they've picked up on this year, this website, but I think this is from a couple of years ago, where
00:03:34
Speaker
an amazing Lego model was built that encompasses the entire sequence of events in the opening temple escape in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. So it's a bit of fun, a bit of Lego. You mean the sequence went into stealing indigenous culture?
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah, well, actually, interestingly, interestingly, you can get plaques on Etsy for your replicas of Indiana Jones's treasures. And people on those plaques, I think they label them as having been reclaimed by
00:04:13
Speaker
Reclaimed by Indiana Jones. So reclaimed from, I don't know, uncivilised people. Who knows? So it's, it's, it's, don't think about it. It's Indiana Jones, it's Christmas, it's Lego. Shush. One million records of archaeological finds made by public now recorded.
00:04:34
Speaker
It doesn't necessarily make sense objectively, that sentence, I think, certainly maybe out of context. But today, that is to say, seven days ago at the British Museum, Arts Minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, as in Whitley Bay, a few miles from me, crikey, Lord Parkinson. Is that a real person?
00:04:58
Speaker
It's called levelling up. You two can become a member of the House of Lords if you cite somewhere in the northeast. Wow. Okay. Good crikey. Lord Parkinson, anyway, at Britley Bay, launched the Treasure Annual Report for 2019 and the Portable Antiquities PAS Annual Report for 2020. These showed that 49,045 archaeological finds were made
00:05:20
Speaker
and recorded throughout the first year of the pandemic. This number is a little lower than the previous years, as opportunities for metal detectorists to record their finds were limited due to lockdown measures and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in amongst all of the documentation was the headline that the one millionth record logged on the PAS database was a copper alloy medieval harness pendant. Not pedant, as I wrote in our agenda.
00:05:50
Speaker
And not pedant, as you had it. Yes, exactly. Pendant found in a place called Bin Book in Lincolnshire. This is accession number NLMB7AFF3, for those of you who are interested at home. Now, interestingly, they go on to say that over one and a half million fines have been recorded by the PAS.
00:06:14
Speaker
But some database records include more than one item. So this isn't the one millionth artifact. This is the one millionth record. Merry Christmas.
Reporting Challenges in Archaeology
00:06:27
Speaker
Merry Christmas and Merry Christmas to the PAS and all the hard-working fellows and so on. And I mean that, of course. The thing is, this is an exercise that happens every year when the PAS puts out a press release about how many fines have been made and logged in the previous year. Just to explain to our viewer in case anyone's not familiar,
00:06:54
Speaker
The PAS or possible antiquity scheme is a scheme that is administered from the British Museum. Yes.
00:07:02
Speaker
And it does two things. It has a network of what are called fines liaison officers to whom members of the public can voluntarily report archaeological finds that they make out while they're out and about. It is not just about metal detecting, although it was set up in the mid 1990s as a response to the rise in metal detecting in the sense that many, many archaeological finds were going unrecorded.
00:07:32
Speaker
and disappearing into private collections without ever being seen or heard of by archaeologists. It's about, as I said, it's a voluntary scheme, five days officers love the artifacts, they go onto an open source database, where they're available for anyone to see and to use for research. And in fact, if you want access to the high level data, like precise locations, and so on, you can
00:07:56
Speaker
register as a bona fide researcher. And many, many people do. For example, a good friend of the show, Ravelis is currently completing PhD on iron age metal, animals and iron age metal finds, and is drawing heavily on PAS material for that. So there's a
00:08:21
Speaker
There's community researchers who basically rely on the PAS for information. It also offers basic, they have to be careful how you use it, for example, distribution charts in particular, of particular kinds of find, heavily reliant on reports to the PAS.
00:08:43
Speaker
Some archaeologists would argue the downside to it is that, first of all, it gives undue prominence to metal detecting because other kinds of finds are also reportable. There are other kinds of portable antiquity. But the main one is that it's a voluntary scheme and still doesn't catch everything.
Critique of PAS on Historical Context
00:09:08
Speaker
And in fact,
00:09:10
Speaker
Well, I mean, you know, that there are anecdotal reports of people, for example, refused to report to the PAS or refused to report accurately to the PAS because they're afraid of losing permissions because site, it might draw attention to a site which then becomes scheduled, which means that means then they wouldn't be allowed to detect on it and so on and so on and so on. And also, again, there's a
00:09:36
Speaker
a lobby, I won't say how large it is in archaeology that suggests that the whole thing is actually far too permissive and that at the very least finds, because they are of a collective heritage, it should be compulsory to report finds if you find something.
00:09:53
Speaker
Well, it's interesting. First of all, I should say it looks like the press release misspelled the find location. It wasn't Binbrook. It's Binbrook with an R. Binbrook double-checked its location. So that's Binbrook in Lincolnshire. Secondly, it's interesting how in this press release, they, as you say, because of this prominence and because of the fact that it's voluntary and the fact because the people have to volunteer their discoveries as well,
00:10:22
Speaker
and not come, you know, come to an arrangement, for example, with the landowner. Then, you know, for example, they have to include in the statement things like greatly, you know, metal detectorists greatly adding to our understanding of Britain's past. And there was a, there was another story recently as well, which was very similar, where I saw people commenting saying, yes, but
00:10:48
Speaker
not how much is this find worth, but what is it and where is it from? What does it tell us about? Arguably, the PAS does skew and in a way is encouraged to skew by the nature of how it works, how people view the artifactual history of this country. Just also as well a little extra bit of information about the copper alloy
00:11:14
Speaker
pendant. It was medieval but it specifically dated to the late 14th century, so 1350 to 1400 in terms of date. And Michael Lewis, head of the PAS, said each find was part of the great jigsaw puzzle of our past. Now again, it's really interesting because
00:11:39
Speaker
We always come back to this with the PAS, don't we? Is this simply the letter of two or maybe uncountable evils in that sense? Because having
00:11:51
Speaker
having this slightly blingy relationship with with with artifacts and and and records of artifacts um not only highlights value and individual and no I suppose individual um named discoverers and discoveries as opposed to stories that those artifacts are attached to but also it continues to encourage people like for example the head of the PAS to use language which is actually
Evolving Views on Metal Detecting
00:12:21
Speaker
Quite outdated, I mean, back in the 1980s, archaeologists were deconstructing the notion that archaeology is in fact something there to be reconstructed, that there is, for example, one truth to be found, that a jigsaw puzzle, or that I think Shanks and Telly, for example, challenged the notion that
00:12:42
Speaker
that the archaeologists are akin to Sherlock Holmes, that we can come in and with the right evidence we can distill, you know, everything down to a precise notion of what exactly happened with regards to, for example, if you wanted to use this term, our past, you know, in terms of, that's a very broad story, isn't it, our past, but, or, you know, a murder site, for example, or, you know, whatever, or, you know, a pile of animal bones from a farm. The real truth is
00:13:09
Speaker
that archaeology is a photo album where most of the pictures are missing and we're trying to understand what happened in previous generations and so on and so forth. I just sort of find myself wondering, as good and as necessary as this work is, is it again this relationship between archaeologists, metal detectorists and the media that results in something that's at the very least theoretically unsound
00:13:40
Speaker
And at the very worst, something which makes us all think about, ooh, shiny, as opposed to ooh, valuable. That's a really interesting point. It does go right to the core of this particular argument. I'll make a few points really. And we're not going to resolve this whole issue just in a 15 minute conversation. Are we not? No, we're not. Oh, OK. My Christmas ruined.
00:14:09
Speaker
sorry um take it off my wish list
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah, resolve the relationship between archaeologist, medical detectorist, the public, and the media. Well, I'm asking unify quantum and... Look, exactly. Quantum theory and... Was it the one with the big and small physics? Just take comfort that in some part of the multiverse, we've done just
COVID-19 Impact on Metal Detecting
00:14:37
Speaker
that, OK? OK. Right, look, in this part of the multiverse,
00:14:45
Speaker
The PAS only ever papered over the cracks of a very fractious relationship. There are archaeologists who were banned metal detecting outright. There are others who see it as a very welcome additional tool to research and at all points in between.
00:15:07
Speaker
The PAS, like any entity, puts out positive stories to justify its existence and increase its profile. And this is coming at a time when we've just, as we've just seen, you know, museums are shutting again through staff shortages.
00:15:25
Speaker
the economics of the cultural sector is fraught to say the least. And because of COVID apart from anything else, and as the press release alluded to, the PAS depends a lot on literally face to face recording by fines liaison officers working with the people reporting the fines by minority metal detectorists.
00:15:50
Speaker
So the fact they've not been able to do that for much of the last two years raises all sorts of questions. For example, while metal detecting was allowed, FLOs weren't able to record. So how much has gone on recording should metal detecting have been banned, as it was doing parts of the lockdown.
00:16:13
Speaker
Should it have been banned outright because of the, you know, the fact that the scheme was set up to monitor it, if you like, wasn't available to do that monitoring, except that it's not statutory, it's voluntary. Yeah. So therefore, you know, there's no, in a sense that I've answered my question, there's no justification for that. They could, they could cancel mental detecting on health grounds on heritage grounds.
00:16:35
Speaker
and so it's not easy. A friend commented on this when the story first came out last week and they said they messaged saying is this a good news story
00:16:56
Speaker
or not. And that's more or less, I think, where an awful lot of archaeologists are. And this isn't about enmity with metal detecting. It's more about the halfway house that we find ourselves in, in terms of how we deal with all this stuff. And what a note for that particular Christmas announcement for us to end on, I suppose.
00:17:21
Speaker
Well, all I would say is, well, there's a number of things. First of all, we're awaiting the response of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to a consultation on the future of the Treasure Act. And that's the other half of the PAS's work. Although it doesn't formally administer the Treasure Act, British Museum does host the Treasure Advisory Committee, which is the legal entity which handles fines under the Treasure Act.
00:17:49
Speaker
And the fines liaison officers write specialist reports about treasure finds. So they are they are involved in that process, although it's not passing PAS's role.
PAS and Metal Detecting Relationship
00:18:00
Speaker
Original role. And the consultations on the basis of the Treasure Act is going to tighten up the definition of treasure so that it's no longer something purely of precious metals, but something of historical value.
00:18:20
Speaker
catch more fines, it will prevent the sale of nationally important fines like the Crosby Garrett helmet, which was sold privately because it had no precious metal. And it's now disappeared into a collection, that's been seen in public a couple of times, but it's not part of a national collection like the British Museum or the Museum in Carlisle, which will be the closest major museum to where it was found.
00:18:45
Speaker
So, we're awaiting that. And there's an ongoing debate in archaeology. My sense, and it's only a sense, is that views in archaeology about metal detecting have hardened a little bit in the last couple of years simply because of the growth of large-scale metal detecting rallies, which, again, PAS has a very fraught relationship with. They don't support rallies which can produce
00:19:15
Speaker
could potentially hundreds of fines which would just overwhelm the ability of a single local fines liaison officer to log. Individual mental detectorists at rallies asked to report fines individually.
00:19:32
Speaker
And it goes to the root of how many fines by metal detectors are actually reported to PAS. And I would just point people really to two papers, one from December 1916 by Sam Hardy, who's a specialist in
00:19:52
Speaker
conflict antics, but also the legal issues behind fines and fines reporting and so on. He wrote a paper analysing the open source data on metal detecting for cultural property as he puts it in the article.
00:20:10
Speaker
and try to estimate the scale and intensity of metal detecting and the quantity of metal detected cultural goods. Basically just try to get a handle on how much was being found as opposed to how much was being reported. And that was seen broadly as being anti-permissive view of metal detecting.
00:20:34
Speaker
A number of researchers who work with PAS material and including Michael Lewis, the head of the PAS, wrote a response to that paper called the Complexity of Mental Detecting Policy and Practice, a response to Samuel Hardy.
Compulsory Reporting of Finds?
00:20:51
Speaker
That was published in 2017. Those are probably the two clearest academic statements of both sides of the argument. And I'd urge people who are interested in the subject to look behind the press releases and go back and read those papers and maybe others that they might discover consequently and make your own mind up. But press release doesn't necessarily equal good thing.
00:21:30
Speaker
No, no. And again, I have to add the caveat as we always do on these things that in the UK at the moment, metal detecting, there is a little bit from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, for example, situation in Scotland is different to the situation in England. The PAS written covers England. But metal detecting with the permission of a landowner and observing things like the
00:21:38
Speaker
No, and as you say, we're not going to resolve it today, unfortunately. Absolutely not.
00:21:57
Speaker
The Treasure Act is a perfectly legal hobby, and there are many metal detectorists who cooperate with archaeologists, work with archaeologists as an important part, effectively, of the geophysics team.
Destruction of Neolithic Cairn
00:22:14
Speaker
including Petuario where we were in the summer. They were metal detectorists working as an integral part of the project and it was very good what they were. Yes, yes. So we are joined for our second segment of the week by the Inimitable, the wonderful, the excellent, the amazing Neil Ackerman. Good afternoon Neil, how are you doing? I'm all right, that's probably
00:22:47
Speaker
Well, it's Christmas. To be fair, you are the only recipient of the Muffet of the Month Award to ever have requested it in order to print it off. I had to design the whole thing for you in order to have it on your office wall. Still on the bookshelf in my office. Exactly. You are well deserving of the introduction.
00:23:01
Speaker
the best intro I've ever had.
00:23:11
Speaker
But this week, you're going to be helping us discuss someone who was almost the Muppet of the Month, actually. But then we realised that this could actually have some fairly serious and interesting undertones and connotations. And that is the story from the Isle of Sky, where, to quote msn.com, Scott was, well, a Scott, not Scott. It says here, Scott was fined.
00:23:36
Speaker
A. Scott was fined £18,000 for destroying an ancient cairn to help in his building project. If I switch over to the website Scottish Construction Now, it says, Ian McInnes used the earth from Upper Tot Cairn on the north of Sky to help with a building project elsewhere on his land. The 59-year-old pleaded guilty to damaging the protected monument when he appeared at Portree
00:24:05
Speaker
I'm guessing, Sheriff caught on the 25th of August on Tuesday and he was fined a total of £18,000. Mr McInnes owns the land next to the A855 near Upper Tott on Skye, where the Upper Tott can stands. Historic Environment Scotland had written, had written to Mr McInnes on three separate occasions about the existence of the can with the most recent letter being sent in 2015. The agency also carried out routine site visits every 10 years.
00:24:34
Speaker
But he went on, unless in 2018, to excavate part of the monument between the 1st and the 12th of December. So it's taken a couple of years, probably because something else happened. I don't know what's happened in the past couple of years, to get around to dealing with this. But Andy Shanks, pro curator
00:24:56
Speaker
fiscal for Grampian Highlands and Islands said, as the owner of the land this ancient monument sits on it was Duncan MacInnes's duty to help protect it. Instead he showed a complete disregard for its importance when he dug up uh dug for soil uh dug for soil and damaged the upper top cairn. Can you just explain for for my benefit actually and perhaps for for our viewer too what kind of what kind of um
00:25:25
Speaker
A historical monument are we actually talking about here? So date, construction, use. What are we talking about when we're talking about anolithic canon and Scottish context? It's a funerary monument, so big pile of stones, large construction that's usually visible from fairly far away.
00:25:50
Speaker
with a chamber of sorts with bodies inside. In various stages of decomposition, it's quite common for there to be quite whole skeletons at the back of the tomb and then kind of disarticulated bones. So they're kind of shifting bodies back as they decompose. But yeah, it's essentially a massive tomb.
00:26:20
Speaker
Often, I know in other parts of the UK, you'll find these on ridges in the landscape, so they're visible from, as you say, from fairly far away, possibly linked with community identity and acknowledgement. I don't know if it's the case necessarily on sky, but certainly in some other Neolithic instances, it's likely that body parts were being moved through the community as well.
00:26:44
Speaker
maybe being passed around ritually and then being returned and swapped out for body parts and bones particularly in in these tombs. But yeah how does this read to you? Does this seem like a like a typical farmer authority interaction? Well he's obviously been told several times what it is and I assume
00:27:07
Speaker
in that was told the consequences of, you know, not adhering to the act that covers scheduled monuments in Scotland. The drug environment in Scotland do kind of keep a fairly close eye on things that, as I said, that kind of site visit every 10 years and they can see what changes there are. Obviously, local authority archaeologists are
00:27:31
Speaker
around kind of closer to it, and we'll probably pick these things up or often pick these things up sooner. When I was at Aberdeenshire Council, we'd sometimes have members of the public saying, well, there's a stone circle on this farmer's field, they seem to be plowing close to it, or, you know, they built in the 90s.
00:27:55
Speaker
Just to kind of check that they're within the rights to be doing what they're doing, which almost always they are. You can see the kind of the frustration sometimes if you have a field with a schedule monument right in the middle of it and you're trying to maximise
00:28:14
Speaker
know, the economy of your land having to go around all the time with your plow is quite annoying. But I think in general, you know, it's farmers tend to be fairly connected to their land and may have been on it for generations. And I think tend to be more mindful of these things in general. And they're kind of their obligations to the land in a longer term.
Farmers and Scheduled Monuments
00:28:37
Speaker
One of the things that caught our eye looking at the story was that in England there have been a couple of similar instances in the last few years that have been prosecuted by historic England. There was a case of damage to offers dyke on the English Welsh border recently and also a Neolithic henge monument that was badly damaged in Somerset by another farmer.
00:29:02
Speaker
Now, again, the motivation in these things is often unclear and particularly for anybody that wasn't actually in court to listen to the evidence, which is never fully reported. But in your experience, have you found or are you aware of any instances where, for example, farmers
00:29:24
Speaker
take the annoyance that you've just described of having to, you know, keep a certain safe distance from a monument when they're playing, for example, and just sort of, you know, if this for a game of soldiers, I'll take the hit, because my land's more important to me than this abstract monument that isn't any economic benefit to me. Yeah, and I think there's partly that, and I think there's also partly
00:29:53
Speaker
a bit of kind of capability and kind of understand of this is my land and I'm being told what to do with it by people who don't live here, aren't farmers. You know, I'm being told by a centralized body who are very distant that I can't and can't use my land in certain ways. I kind of have some sympathies with why they might get into that mindset. And I think that certainly
00:30:21
Speaker
an aspect that the wider archaeological community needs to be a bit better at doing. And I think in general it's getting better, but there is a very much
00:30:36
Speaker
we know what's on your land better than you know what's on your land, and we know what you should be doing with that, which often doesn't help. No. It's interesting that because in the case of the, and I said the what's dike, that's a different dike, the offer's dike damage.
00:30:54
Speaker
I seem to recall the the landowner made the case that he wasn't aware he wasn't aware that this thing was was a monument and yet I remember at the time you and I Andy we were skeptical about whether or not it's possible to buy that land and not have some sort of notification come with the legal documentation you know it's basically something that goes
00:31:14
Speaker
You know, this is important. You cannot, you know, for example, bulldoze it as the guy did. Well, I mean, apart from anything else, the Defra magic land database includes things like shed your wounds. Yeah. Yeah. Well, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So if you do it, yeah, if you do it, it's not just heritage bodies. It's also whether other land awareness will bring it to your attention. Yeah. But nonetheless, that isn't the same sort of communication that I guess
00:31:44
Speaker
I guess an archaeologist might want to bring to the table, just saying, this is important, don't touch it. It's not the same as talking about what it means in the landscape, why it was there, why it might be good to keep it there. Is that sort of maybe something that, and this is why this didn't become a Muppet of the Month, incidentally, for people at home. It's because actually this feels like this is an element of maybe
00:32:11
Speaker
asking the question, what else could we do in our communication to make sure that the people are more inclined to be sympathetic and empathetic, I suppose, actually, to the historic environments around them, and therefore, actually, to their fellow citizens and fellow human beings in that sense. I mean, do you think, is it even practical to have like a sit-down face-to-face when someone buys a plot of land like that? I mean,
00:32:40
Speaker
I think in Scotland there's about 8,000 scheduled monuments in total, and I mean some of them are owned by the public, but most of them I think are privately owned land.
00:32:56
Speaker
I mean, I don't know if the stock environment's gone, do get notified if someone buys the land. I don't know if there would be a legal obligation by the buyer to do that, but there is a legal obligation from the solicitors to notify someone if they're buying land with a scheduled monument on it. But I mean, the amount of paperwork you get when you're buying land, in that circumstance, it would be
00:33:23
Speaker
easy for that to get lost. And it's not necessarily going to be the forefront of anybody's mind when they're going through that process. But not just as well, because often you buy land in order to do something with it. You don't buy land to not be able to do something with it, which is problematic.
00:33:48
Speaker
Again, we're only going by press reports, but it appears that in this case, the landowner appeared to want some, effectively some hardcore to help build a shed. And it was presumably quicker to
00:34:07
Speaker
go to the local Neolithic care than it is to go to the local builders yard if you're you know on the north coast of sky.
Communicating Historical Significance
00:34:13
Speaker
Well and it was a substantial pile nine foot tall off the ground so it was a big a big pile of potential hardcore in that sense and I'm just sitting there yeah.
00:34:24
Speaker
I mean, I'm interested in what you were saying about the sort of relationship between historic Scotland and communities and Landlobes as well. I'm aware that, again, speaking from south of the border, there's often a, anyone that's been involved in planning issues, I've been involved in several long years, is aware that you,
00:34:51
Speaker
you happily live in an archaeological bubble where everybody cares about heritage and wants to share and wants to make heritage a part of the community. And then you come across an architect or a counsellor or a developer who just sees this as sort of, I won't use the word woke now, but as a sort of touchy-feely nonsense that's standing in the way of improving the local economy and making lives better for local people.
00:35:17
Speaker
and you have to find a way of negotiating that. Is that the kind of thing that maybe, and I'm throwing out to all three of us really, is this something archaeologists need to be aware of and maybe learn to deal with in a more effective way? From my experience of living in Orkney where a massive amount of archaeology here in a place that is
00:35:47
Speaker
much all agricultural land and there is within the kind of Orney community tensions sometimes come up between the two and there is again the idea of a bunch of folk from down south to central about Scotland which is as down south to Orney as London as you know is a similar kind of
00:36:13
Speaker
thing where they're standing in the way of Orkney developing and moving on as it wants to by holding back. So you've kind of got the two extremes right next to one another in Orkney because if the population is decent for a Scottish island but we are all kind of
00:36:35
Speaker
mixing together. My first summer when I was doing my undergraduate, I was writing in a pub and I was being told by builders about times where they kind of, they were digging and found some human bones and just kind of shove them back in again and cover it up because it would stop the job. And they didn't really mind either way. Um, so yeah, I mean, that's their notes. It's, I think,
00:37:01
Speaker
no one's ever going to all agree on how that should be and everyone has their views on how land should be used and that's kind of healthy and fine. I think it's the kind of the looking down your nose at people who are not archaeologists and telling them what their land means, which
00:37:21
Speaker
I don't know if that actually happens consciously from an archaeology point of view, but it's certainly perceived like that. If that's the perception, then that's going to want us to change.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting as well because, you know, I think we all hear horror stories along those lines. In terms of human remains, in terms of when I was living and working in York, there were stories of, you know, because lots of York is anoxic. Leather and organic goods were just being tossed into the skip and covered up quickly, you know, because, oh no, we can't, we can't afford to stop for this.
00:38:02
Speaker
And so, I mean, yes, absolutely. When I was talking about this idea of having a face-to-face and trying to describe the meaning of a monument, for example, I think what I was imagining would be a conversation, not a prescription. So there's that question of how we actually meet with people and talk to them about what is their land and what is their history and what is their place where they live.
00:38:28
Speaker
Or, for example, what is their building site, you know, if you're talking to the gaffer or whatever. But then also as well, there's this other thing as well, frankly, it's provision, it's the ability to say, don't worry, look,
00:38:40
Speaker
There's a wee pot of money back there. We can pull on that from London or whatever, from Edinburgh or something, and it can be used to mitigate maybe a day initially, a day's investigation, and you don't have to hide the human remains. That would be useful, but that's a whole policy structure that obviously we do. A little bit like with our first segment, we're not going to solve that today, Andy, are we?
00:39:06
Speaker
But the thing is that the human remains thing is worrying because, you know, when you find human remains, they're investigated initially as to whether or not they're recent in terms of a recent murder, perhaps, or, you know, they are problematic. And so if because of these interactions, we're actually discouraging people from maybe reporting potential crimes. This is hyper-hypothetical, by the way.
00:39:34
Speaker
then that's a problem and that must come out of this interaction between people who genuinely want what was best for the historic environments and people who are living in that environment, surely.
00:39:45
Speaker
I think there's also, there is a matter of education about it. I mean, certainly in England, historic England, I'm working with other partners in other jurisdictions in the UK, have been developing this concept of heritage crime.
Heritage Crime Awareness
00:40:08
Speaker
They've been prosecuting more cases they've been prosecuting more cases in a high profile way, making sure they get into the national press and and so on. And then the idea is that
00:40:22
Speaker
say, for example, bulldozing a bit of office bike or a henge, or, you know, in this case, a, you know, a cannon, you know, if you bury on one or whatever, isn't victimless in that it's first of all, it's illegal, it's against the law, it's just as illegal as getting into a car and driving off when you've had too much to drink.
00:40:40
Speaker
um it's an anti-social you know it's dangerous and at least you know it's an anti-social thing to do and it's and it's punished by a legal sanction um and and you know so no sympathy there Garth you know especially if somebody knew it was illegal.
00:40:57
Speaker
And that, in the end, is your ultimate recourse. If you can't persuade somebody, if Parliament, Hollywood, whatever, in its collective wisdom has made something illegal, end off.
00:41:15
Speaker
And yes, you try and moderate it. You try and create a positive relationship with land owners and things like that. But in the end, if you can't achieve that or they don't want to listen, then you have to be prepared to fall back on the law.
00:41:32
Speaker
Yeah. And certainly the historical environment in Scotland, they do before it gets to that stage of prosecuting someone, there's letters and notice and you're about to do something or you've started doing something, you know, stop now. We're aware of what's happened. Just if you stop, we're not going to go any further with it. But in terms of the heritage law and heritage crime,
00:41:58
Speaker
I think this drug environment has only recently been given the powers to report crime directly to the obscure fiscal rather than having to go through police and other things. So, you know, I mean, I'm not a legal expert, but any stretch of the imagination, if I was, I'd be significantly financially better off.
00:42:28
Speaker
in terms of the kind of the development of this law and how it's done legally. It's a good thing that there's been a prosecution fairly early on as a precedent of
00:42:44
Speaker
you know, if, if you are doing this and a stroke around and Scotland are contacting you, they can then just go to the prosecutor fiscal and you will end up in court and you will end up with consequences.
Legal Precedents for Heritage Crime
00:42:56
Speaker
Um, so I mean, you're making examples of people through law. I don't particularly agree with at all, but you know, it's a well-publicized thing that's happened. And probably a lot of people who have sexual monuments on their land, you haven't really given them much thought.
00:43:14
Speaker
will not be more aware. So that is kind of a good thing to come out of it. And it's good to see. I mean,
00:43:23
Speaker
reporting something in 2018 and it being done in 2021, obviously with COVID in the way, that's relatively streamlined. So it obviously has worked, that kind of new legal set up with the struggle and so on. So that's kind of good to see. And in fact, I don't see, I'm in certainly cases I'm aware of in under English legal jurisdiction. I'm assuming it's similar.
00:43:48
Speaker
you do have the the procurator physical investigating cases in Scotland and can instruct the police can't they to undertake certain investigations and so on slightly different to the way it works in England but either way you have
00:44:04
Speaker
the legal authorities have to apply things like public interest tests as to whether it's worth actually investing the money that this investigation is going to take in the outcome. So it's not a given even, even if you report something up the line in that manner that it's necessarily going to end up with an investigation, let alone a prosecution in the courts. So there are lots of steps in between.
00:44:33
Speaker
Well, I'll bring this segment to a close just by suggesting a campaign name for awareness. And maybe it should be... You see that hill over there? Maybe she does 10 jibets. Hey! Hey! Don't knock it down. Don't bulldoze it. Don't close it.
00:44:52
Speaker
Thank you, Neil. Thank you for your time this afternoon. We do have to apologize for him. He's always like this. It's just enthusiasm. I don't know how he goes.
00:45:06
Speaker
but in all seriousness thanks for joining us because having that perspective both of us we were very keen not to be seen to be sort of again commenting on the Scottish issue from south of the border here albeit Mark's only just south of the border so well actually on this side of the country I'm about a hundred and a hundred and twelve miles south of the border actually so
00:45:36
Speaker
It's the debatable lands in the old terms. In all seriousness, thanks for joining us because it's been really, really valuable to have back. It's exactly why people don't like London. Sorry, go on. No, thank you, Neil. Thank you. See you later.
00:45:56
Speaker
So thank you once again to Neil Ackerman for his time. You'll be seeing him again in Muppet of the Month, which is a segment that we've recorded with him as well, which is well worth a watch this month, I think.
Tribute to Mike Ingram
00:46:08
Speaker
We had some fun. But now we're going to just take a moment to be quite serious and consider the passing of a colleague and also a supporter of the pipeline. So, Andy, would you like to explain that?
00:46:27
Speaker
Yeah, I'd just like to take a moment really to appreciate the work of our late colleague Mike Ingram. Mike was a well-known battlefield historian, a Riccardi who was an expert on the Wars of the Roses, had written a number of books.
00:46:46
Speaker
And he started out a few weeks ago, the heart attack aged only 59. It's been a huge shock to the relatively small world of battlefield archaeology and battlefield guiding and, but also particularly to the community in Northampton where he was
00:47:03
Speaker
You know, he recently became a Freeman of Northampton, a hereditary Freeman of Northampton, something he was very proud of. I'm mentioning it here because Mike was a good friend of the pipeline and indirectly of watching Brief. We worked on a number of stories together and in fact
00:47:23
Speaker
It was the work of Mike and his colleagues, which first of all helped protect the register battlefield of Northampton. That's how I first came to know him, in fact.
00:47:34
Speaker
In 2012, Northampton Borough Council was supporting a development on the site, on the registered battlefield, where, to cut to the chase, all sorts of attempted manipulations of process were going on. Mike had been involved in research in the battlefield and turned it actually into a campaigner on the back of it.
00:47:58
Speaker
And that development was eventually headed off. The battlefield is now more properly preserved and understood. It's got proper interpretation boards and so on. And there's even a Northampton, Northamptonshire Battlefield Society, which Mike founded, which helps monitor that and other important battlefields in Northamptonshire, including the battlefield in Aesby.
00:48:31
Speaker
So that was one aspect of Mike's work, but he was also instrumental in leading the campaign that got the medieval Ellen across in Northampton properly restored. And so.
00:48:49
Speaker
he is going to be a huge loss. As somebody said to me, they are very big shoes to fill. And I think the last, what I would say really is that Mike was the kind of person who is so important in the heritage world. It was so
00:49:11
Speaker
somebody who is independent but knows their stuff, somebody who is a brilliant communicator but also isn't afraid to ruffle feathers, even among what might be seen as friendly forces like, you know, historic England, is making sure basically
00:49:30
Speaker
that people do their jobs and he was always there to stand up for the heritage within the community of Northampton and East Midlands, but Northampton in particular. So a huge loss, particularly obviously to his friends and family. So I think it's important at the time of the year when we're all coming together
00:49:57
Speaker
and enjoying our friends, our families, time to be together and so on, to remember the people who've gone. And sadly Mike is one of those, and only two recently, and all too soon.
00:50:12
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you for that, Andy. I suppose we'll end on that
Merry Christmas and Gratitude
00:50:19
Speaker
note. What I would say is everyone in that sense do take time to be grateful for what we have and who we have. And I know in some cases,
00:50:30
Speaker
family relationships certainly I know from personal experience can be difficult and I'm not remotely saying that therefore we should all be grateful for people who aren't necessarily the most helpful in our lives but there'll be friends, there'll be people that you know, there'll be people who maybe are alone this Christmas who we can reach out to and just be grateful for and that is something that's definitely worthwhile doing, a very timely reminder.
00:51:00
Speaker
From my part, as I was saying at the beginning, I'm looking forward to seeing the in-laws. They're coming over and we're going to have a good few days together for the first time in two years. That's definitely something to be grateful for.
00:51:15
Speaker
I'm looking forward to having, hopefully, a fairly quiet Christmas. You and I, we are planning on doing a sort of Christmas New Year, so at some point yet to really tie it down, livestream quiz. I may try and rope some other people in to get involved as well. So keep an eye out for that, guys. Please. And also, it will be interactive. I'm not popular, if you ask. I might be too granola.
00:51:38
Speaker
Maybe it depends on how things go with cabinet, doesn't it really? Look, whatever cabinet decides, I'm equipped. You've got your cabinet over there. Yes.
00:51:54
Speaker
But also as well, as I say, check out my bit of the month, a little extra Christmas present for you guys this week. And I'll see you, well, soon. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Merry festive season to all of you. Happy holidays as they say. Take care. Good y'all. Good y'all. Bye bye.
00:52:22
Speaker
This podcast episode has been produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network in collaboration with Archaeosoup Productions. Find out more podcasts at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com
00:52:38
Speaker
This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.