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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 8539322, member: 128351&quot;]This means it is not unauthorized archaeological digging. In France any kind of archaeological excavation and taking out of archaeological material is illegal, even in your own property. Authorizations are delivered only if the digging is overseen by researchers with a valid research project. This is the law, and one may wonder why metal detectors are openly sold and operated in full daylight throughout the country. Of course metal detectorists, if gendarmes make a stop and start asking questions, may always pretend they lost their keys at night in this field, or maybe the next field, they don&#039;t remember... Much hypocrisy in this activity.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>A system like the British PAS has been discussed and almost unanimously rejected by archaeologists worthy of that name. Digging an excavation just because the MD rang, taking out the metallic material while neglecting or dumping among the rubble the ceramic or other material is just destroying an archaeological layer. Detectorists do not draw plans, surveys, stratigraphic sections, they just dig because their detector rang, find and take out the metallic object, put it in their pocket and hasta la vista baby. Subsequent reporting to the PAS is a joke from a scientific point of view: you must just give GPS coordinates accurate to a 1 metre square, that&#039;s all... For 90% of the finds nobody will check on the ground if it was the actual location. PAS files are useful only for knowing the area of circulation of coins, that&#039;s all, but all information about their context is destroyed and lost (what if your Gordian III antoninianus was not lost in the 3rd c. but in a medieval level, for example)?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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