Detecting Empowerment, Sustaining Commitment: How archaeological metal detecting can underpin enduring health benefits for military veterans

While a still young but growing body of literature has begun mapping the positive effects that engagement in archaeological activities is proving to have on mental health and general wellbeing (see e.g. Everill and Burnell 2022; Sayer 2023), the literature on the positive effects of metal detecting as archaeological practice is so far scarce. This scarcity stands in stark contrast to the self-reported positive experiences of practitioners in e.g. Denmark (Dobat et al. 2022; Dobat and Dobat 2020) and the UK (Dobat et al. 2020; 2022; Winkley 2016). In this article, we contribute to this burgeoning field by comparing two programs that engage military veterans in archaeological metal detecting activities; the American Veterans Archeological Recovery (AVAR) and the Danish VETEKTOR Buddy program. The aim is both to point to the distinct potential of archaeological metal detecting in general, and more specifically to its particular relevance and value for veteran communities. Focusing on veterans' own experiences, we show how archaeological metal detecting holds a unique potential for empowering practitioners and inducing enduring health benefits. Our argument is that the realisation of this potential, especially for veteran communities, depends on crafting programs or frameworks that foster both a sense of independence and commitment. Moreover, while the comparison of these two programs points to the necessity of taking national traditions and structural frameworks into account when designing similar initiatives, our intention is also to push the archaeological community's understanding of the role avocational archaeological metal detectorists may play in engendering good archaeological field practice within the detectorist community, and underscore the value of engaging veterans in archaeological practices in general.