Nighthawking and the BBC

The BBC has written an overview of so-called 'nighthawking' (Lauren Potts, "Digging for treasure: Is 'nighthawking' stealing our past?", 21 March 2015). There is discussion of recent digging adjacent to Hadrian's Wall.

Mark Harrison has described their activities:

"Some of these people are very happy to travel long distances, sometimes in groups. They use camouflage kit and sophisticated equipment with night vision and very powerful torches. 

"They're very well organised. This idea people have that they're just having a bit of fun and that they don't know what they're doing is something we need to dispel."

Interestingly I have just been writing on the topic of 'heritage crime' and the BBC report contrasts with some of the current 'academic' discourse.

An issue left undiscussed by Potts is the one explored in the forum article for the Papers of the Institute of Archaeology.