Cite this as: Pajdla, P., Lečbychová, O., Novák, D., Antal, R., Komoróczy, B., Chlup, T. and Mařík, J. 2023 Recording Data from Metal-Detecting Activities in the Czech Republic: The Portal of Amateur Collaborators and Register of Individual Finds (AMCR-PAS), Internet Archaeology 64. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.64.13
This article discusses the importance of the Portal of Amateur Collaborators and the Register of Individual Finds of the Archaeological Map of the Czech Republic (AMCR-PAS) in preserving data from metal-detecting activities in the Czech Republic. The context and legal framework of metal detecting in the country are explained along with the establishment of AMCR-PAS. The collaboration between amateur and professional archaeologists is also discussed. The recorded finds are analysed in terms of chronological, typological and spatial distribution. The AMCR-PAS system is recognised as a crucial tool for the preservation of data from metal detecting, and provides a valuable resource for national and transnational archaeological research, enabled especially by aggregation of AMCR-PAS data in the ARIADNE infrastructure. Overall, this article highlights the significance of the AMCR-PAS system and its potential to contribute to the understanding of the country's rich archaeological heritage. It also examines the shortcomings and challenges that accompany applying the system in practice.
Corresponding author: Petr Pajdla
pajdla@arub.cz
Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno
Olga Lečbychová
lecbychova@arub.cz
Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno
David Novák
novak@arup.cas.cz
Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
Róbert Antal
antal@arub.cz
Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno
Balázs Komoróczy
komoroczy@arub.cz
Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno
Tomáš Chlup
chlup@arup.cas.cz
Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
Jan Mařík
marik@arup.cas.cz
Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
Figure 1: Map of the Czech Republic with the number of archaeological organisations licensed in a given area summarised on a hexagonal grid. Out of the 100 organisations, there are 8 with a licence for the whole territory of the Czech Republic
Figure 2: The workflow of recording a find under the AMCR-PAS scheme
Figure 3: Screenshot of the AMCR-PAS finds recording interface. The exact location of the find on the map was changed to a random spot
Figure 4: Screenshot of finds published in the AMCR Digital Archive
Figure 5: Screenshot of a record published in the ARIADNE Portal
Figure 6: An overview of finds recovered per year. The years corresponding to finds recorded retrospectively, i.e. found before the AMCR-PAS launch, are in grey
Figure 7: A network of active collaborations. The blue squares represent archaeologists from licensed organisations and the yellow circles amateur collaborators. The size of the circle indicates the number of finds recorded by the given collaborator. Chosen regional clusters are labelled the same as on the map in Figure 10: A – South Moravian Region, B – Boskovice area, C – Kutná Hora District, D – mid-Central Bohemian Region
Figure 8: A histogram of the number of finds reported by individual collaborators. The strongly right-skewed distribution shows that most of the collaborators recorded between 1 and 20 finds although in some cases, collaborators recorded more than 100. The figure includes finds from all processing states
Figure 9: Number of finds recovered in different months showing seasonality in the metal detecting practice
Figure 10: Map of the Czech Republic with a spatial distribution of recorded finds (with log-scaled colour range). The exact locations of the finds are generalised on a hexagonal grid with a cell size of 25km². The figure includes finds from all processing states. Chosen concentrations of finds are labelled the same as in the network in Figure 7: A – South Moravian Region, B – Boskovice area, C – Kutná Hora District, D – mid-Central Bohemian Region
Figure 11: A treemap chart of material specifications of the recorded artefacts with the highest proportion of metallic finds
Figure 12: A treemap chart of artefact types recorded in AMCR-PAS
Figure 13: Aoristic sum of finds in time with visible peaks. The Bronze Age (yellow), Roman (green) and Late Medieval (blue) periods are highlighted
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