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The Nighthawking Survey
 
N
ighthawking - what is the problem? Nighthawking is the theft by a few of theheritage of the many
Nighthawking is the illegal search forand removal of antiquities from theground using metal detectors, withoutthe permission of the landowners, oron prohibited land such as ScheduledMonuments. Nighthawking is thereforetheft.Nighthawks are not to be confused withresponsible metal detectorists. It is clearthat many metal detectorists follow goodpractice guidelines, record and/or reporttheir finds, abide by the Treasure Act(1996) and are valued contributors toarchaeological understanding.This report uses the general term'Nighthawks' to refer to those whoillegally metal detect. Its use is intendedto emphasise the distinction betweenillegal metal detectorists and law-abiding metal detectorists. It is notmeant to imply either that the activitiesof Nighthawks are restricted to hoursof darkness, or that law-abiding metaldetecting can only take place duringthe day.
 
Nighthawking has been around at leastsince the 1970s, but only one limitedsurvey has been carried out beforenow, in 1995, by the Council for BritishArchaeology. In the absence of realevidence, feelings have often run highand the reputations of responsible metaldetectorists have suffered.In November 2006 Oxford Archaeologywas commissioned by English Heritageto carry out a survey looking into theextent of illegal searching and removalof antiquities from archaeological sites.The Nighthawking Survey involvedconsultation with over 400 heritage-related agencies and interestedindividuals throughout the UK andNorthern Ireland, and the CrownDependencies of the Isle of Man,Jersey, and Guernsey.The Survey set out to get beyond therumour and myth that surrounds thecrime, and find out where it happens,how often it happens and how greata threat it actually is to our heritage.By painting a clearer picture ofNighthawking, we are better placed topropose ways to combat it.Nighthawking is the theft by a few ofthe heritage of the many. Regardlessof the numbers of sites affected byNighthawking, the heritage is a finiteresource. The real value of heritage isnot financial but lies in the information itcan provide about our common historyand origins. This knowledge belongsto everyone and the most significantconsequence of Nighthawking is thisloss of knowledge.A copy of the full Nighthawking reportcan be found at:www.helm.org.uk/nighthawking
'The loss of the objects probably of little (monetary) value as metal does not survive well on the site - is not the most disappointing aspect of this crime; it is the damage that has been done to the archaeological record that is most significant. These objects when recorded in their proper contexts are likely to have provided much valuable evidence about the dating and function of the site - this information is now lost forever. As the finds themselves had been pre-donated to the Lincolnshire archaeological collection and would have been publicly available the theft was actually committed against us all. Even worse the loss of the educational value of the objects is a crime not only against the present generation but against future generations. This is the crime of a particularly immoral and selfish person.' Lindum dig website 
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