cole_flores44•6d agoMost Upvoted

Hot take: metal detectors are ruining archaeology sites for everyone

I overheard a guy at a park in Denver last week bragging about finding a bunch of old coins and arrowheads with his metal detector. He said he kept them all in a shoebox at home. Honestly that just rubbed me the wrong way because those artifacts lose all context when they get pulled out without any documentation. How do we stop hobbyists from just digging up history for fun?

3 comments

3 Comments

nguyen.blake6d ago

Blame the laws, not the hobbyists. If you want context preserved, make it legal to document finds without getting them confiscated.

michael_green445d ago

Right, because what this country really needs is a bunch of guys digging up arrowheads and then praying nobody from the state shows up to ask questions. Like the laws are the problem, not the guy who just posted a photo of a burial mound he "accidentally" found in his backyard. I'm sure the state archaeologist is just dying to sort through 500 blurry cell phone pics of old tin cans before they get a call about an actual historic site.

susansingh5d ago

Put a call into the state archaeologist's office, they're tired of that too.