What is this thing called the PAS? Metal-detecting entanglements in England and Wales

The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) was established in 1997 to record metal-detecting and other chance finds of antiquities in England and Wales and to make them available for scholarly study. Other technologies and policies have worked synergistically with the PAS to realise the research potential of its recorded anti- quities, but the PAS itself is still open to criticism because of the recalcitrant problem of unreported finds. Alongside the PAS, over the same time period, the Internet market in antiquities grew to become a major commercial outlet for metal-detecting finds. Ian Hodder’s theory of entanglement allows some sense to be made of these recent developments and their impacts upon the research and metal-detecting communities.