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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;SeptimusT, post: 2916560, member: 91240&quot;]A very interesting and reasonable write up. The PAS really is the way to go. Even if someone holds a very strong protectionist view, the reality is that one of two things are going to occur if you try to maintain tight control over all finds. The first is that the sites get in the way of development and just get destroyed and then swept under the rug. The second is that they end up on the black market. </p><p>It’s a no brainer to encourage and reward reporting, and to record the information of even seemingly insignificant finds and add them to a database. </p><p><br /></p><p>It’s worth noting that not all archaeologists are unreasonable about this. But sometimes those with very strong views are the loudest. As an anthropology student, I’ve been around plenty of professionals who were supportive of systems like the PAS. Some of them are even collectors themselves. But academia isn’t very welcoming of dissenting voices, so they tend to keep quiet. </p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, as far as coins go, they are certainly useful in the context of what’s around them. The information imparted goes both ways: combined with other artifacts, the coins can be dated more precisely, and likewise the coins can date the other artifacts. So finding a coin dated to, say, 70 AD, along with another item dated to a range of 30-90, substantially narrows the date range of a site. But of course, coins aren’t always (or even often) part of any such context to begin with.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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