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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 8163781, member: 128351&quot;]I do not agree at all with this gentleman. Archaeological importance of coins is not peripheral and in every state of the art publication of an archaeological dig there is a chapter devoted to coins. Sometimes, a special volume. </p><p>Coins are essential for archaeologists because they date the layers in which they are found. Radiocarbon dating is not always possible, and pottery dating is not always precise enough. When detectorists go digging for ancient coins, an archaeologist will say that they pick the metallic material out of a still unexplored site, leaving only the ceramic or lithic material. Sometimes, when archaeologists find a site that cannot be immediately studied (maybe it will, but in the future...), they salt it by dispersing on all the surface kilograms of tiny copper or aluminium fragments so metal detectors will ring everywhere and discourage the detectorists. </p><p>Coins are also interesting when we know where they were found, because all did not circulate everywhere. And what about all these hoards that are dispersed on the market with bogus provenances, to hide the fact they were found hoarded together? The interesting info would be : what coins were in the hoard? Where was it buried, and when? What was its archaeological context? When by chance a hoard is found by archaeologists, it sometimes becomes a reference book. But what the finders, the traffickers, the dealers and auctioneers do is destroy these informations by forging false provenances to the coins and disperse the hoard for a maximum profit.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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