Metal-Detecting for Cultural Objects until ‘There Is Nothing Left’: The Potential and Limits of Digital Data, Netnographic Data and Market Data for Open-Source Analysis

Abstract

This methodological study assesses the potential for automatically generated data, netnographic data and market data on metal-detecting to advance cultural property criminology. The method comprises the analysis of open sources that have been identified through multilingual searches of Google Scholar, Google Web and Facebook. Results show significant differences between digital data and market data. These demonstrate the limits of restricted quantitative analysis of online forums and the limits of extrapolation of market data with “culture-bound” measures. Regarding the validity of potential quantitative methods, social networks as well as online forums are used differently in different territories. Restricted quantitative analysis, and its foundational assumption of a constant relationship between the size of the largest online forum and the size of the metal-detecting population, are unsound. It is necessary to conduct extensive quantitative analysis, then to make tentative “least worst” estimates. As demonstrated in the sample territories, extensive analyses may provide empirical data, which revise established estimates. In this sample, they corroborate the detecting community’s own perception that they are ‘beat[ing these sites] to death’.

Archaeology's awkward allies

“…These include the scale, intensity and nature of activities affecting the archaeological record both on and off the field, the motivations and socio-economic backgrounds of practitioners, and the structure of their communities (e.g. Karl & Möller 2016; Hardy 2018; Delestre 2019). Critical consideration of these, along with more traditional sources of information, is a precondition for the formulation of appropriate professional reactions.…”

The Archaeological Impacts of Metal Detecting

“…The impact of the metal-detecting hobby on archaeological resources is an extremely important topic that deserves careful scrutiny. The article by Deckers et al (2018), unfortunately, misrepresents some aspects of Hardy's (2017) article, particularly his methodology, while the latter makes a valiant attempt to draw as much information as possible from social media and online forums (see also Hardy, 2018a), yet also bases conclusions on analysis that suffers from some serious over-simplifications of heritage policy in at least some jurisdictions. I applaud Hardy's attempt to extract international data from online sources to help us evaluate these impacts yet, given my reservations about those data and the way they are analysed, I am skeptical of the conclusion that restrictive and prohibitive jurisdictions suffer less loss of archaeological evidence to metal detecting than do more permissive ones.…”

“…Hardy's (2018b) rebuttal that "there is no automatic reason to assume that such statistics are unrepresentative" just because some restrictive jurisdictions with poor enforcement yield high estimates is not reassuring. His analysis of estimates garnered from different sources -various online and social-media sources and "netnography" versus market data -illustrates some of the complexities and deals explicitly and more effectively with some of these biases (Hardy 2018a). It is also laudable that Hardy heeds Thomas's (2016) call for a more transnational approach to the issues.…”

“…One suspects that his classification similarly over-simplifies the situation in other countries where multiple jurisdictions vary in their heritage policies. As Hardy has more recently acknowledged, the intersection of different laws and variations among jurisdictions and in enforcement from court to court in the United States complicates characterization of the heritage regime there and, specifically, where, whether, and from whom permits are required to use metal detectors (Hardy, 2018a). Arguably, the allegedly permissive England is not that different than the allegedly restrictive Canada, both having regimes based on British Common Law, except insofar as the former has formal reporting mechanisms like the Portable Antiquities Scheme (Paynton, 2008) and the latter generally does not (but Alberta, 2000).…”

It Is Not against the Law, if No-One Can See You: Online Social Organisation of Artefact-Hunting in Former Yugoslavia

“…Following a series of analyses of open-source research methodology (Hardy 2017b;Hardy 2018) and opensource evidence for cultural property crime in Western Europe (Hardy 2017a), Eastern Europe (Hardy 2016), South Asia (Hardy 2019b), South-East Asia (Hardy 2020a) and East Asia (Hardy 2019a), this study sought to amass data that related to South-Eastern Europe, specifically former Yugoslavia. Adapting sets of queries that had been refined through those analyses, using terms that were drawn from the activity and its participants, this study sought to answer a range of questions that would inform academic understanding and intelligence-led policing.…”