Battlefield archaeology.....education or desecration?

[Adam Elsdon]

I was reading something a while ago about some individuals that had gone to france/belgium and had removed items they had found on a battlefield.

 

Whats the general consensus on this? I personally wouldnt touch anything from a battlefield with a barge pole, but no doubt there are other points of view!

[lightweight]

Desecration without a doubt.

 

However, if you were to spot something lying about it would be your duty to bring it to the attention of the proper authorities. If that meant you had to move it to prevent some nerk putting it in his pocket while you did so - thats unfortunate but a necessary evil these days.

 

I assume we are talking about amateur treasure hunters here?

[ashley]

Yes,

i admit i did it many years ago but not to the scale where i have known sites (not necessarily modern military) have literally been robbed

 

There are i am afraid people around to-day who do it purely for profit

 

Ashley

[Rick W]

Its a very philosophical question to use a long word. The same argument can be used for any archaeological site.No, I do not agree with the "plundering" of any site, but any recovery of artefacts should be made to increase our knowledge of the past.

[Adam Elsdon]

Yes,

i admit i did it many years ago but not to the scale where i have known sites (not necessarily modern military) have literally been robbed

 

There are i am afraid people around to-day who do it purely for profit

 

Ashley

 

Which also raises another question, would you buy something that had been found on a Battlefield?

[ashley]

For my sins what i kept was the first helmet (shell) i dug up a couple of medals and two stick grenade remnants practically every thing i dug/picked up i gave away to younger collectors at the time.

No i will /would not buy a battle field relic as such.......though many years ago i brought a single decal M35 German helmet with a partially dried out liner from a local dealer put it in a carrying bag took it home.

 

Whilst looking at the decal hand comes across a small nick in the rear of the skirt , shrapnel damage reason for the dried out liner = Blood.

 

I feel that a lot of militaria was "honestly" picked up from the battlefield at the time, but there are many items that have been dug up removed many years after the conflict has passed purely for profit.

 

Ashley

[Jack]

I can't see the problem with it. The are certain lines that you do not cross but overall it isn't a problem for me.

 

It has to be one of the most exciting things to do. A battlefield relic for some - a peice of old junk to others. Not too sure what is sacred about it (apart from graves) surely it is a way of keeping history alive??

[Adam Elsdon]

I do get the interest, however as an ex servicemen, i look on a battlefield at a war grave, for instance i had a relative in WW1 who was in it from the very start and survived all the way through, one of the original "Old Contemptables". Alot of the Rifle Brigade he was with didnt make it, therefore alot of his friends are still on the field with their personal effects, and that applies for any soldier of any nationality in that conflict.

I am interested in the history, but not the collecting aspect of it.

Had i been involved in a conflict that resulted in the deaths and unrecovered losses of my comarades, im not too sure i would be over the moon with battlefield collectors!

 

Im not trying to put those people down, who are interested in it, particularly in a way that records the history to the benefit of everyone else. I just find the personal collectors motives a bit strange.

 

Opposing views on this welcome, particularly explaining the significance of the collector and why they do it!

[Tony B]

I assume we are talking about amateur treasure hunters here?

 

No Martin, grave robbers. There is no ametuer of profesional, if people go out and desecrate sites they are no better then Burke & Hare. I (as you see) feel very strongly about this. I know of a case last year where a dealar who comes to local boot sales was bosting that the Great War helmets he had for sale'Still had bits of hair and brain in them' Who's sicker? Him, or the people who flock to buy . Often the artefacts found with remains are the only clue to the man's identity, remove them and any chance of an identity goes. you have killed them for a second time. Leave only footprints (and be careful where you leave those) Take only pictures and memories.

[Guest catweazle (Banned Member)]

I get the feeling from the replies that older people are for leaving things alone,where as younger people dont see to much of a problem with it.Maybe its just a time thing.

Who of us would object to the digging up of a roman battle field.not many i think,more like if done by profesionals it would be activly encouraged in the name of

a better understanding.I think once time has gone by and no one is left alive that had any connection to the event it will be seen as ok.I personally would like to see things left alone.The people that rob these sites for profit, i would like to introduce them to water skiing behind my boat blindfold.

[ford 369]

apart from the ethical arguements for and against battlefield archeology it is I believe against the law to use metal detectors in France and possibly Belgium without an appropriate licence mainly due to the large amounts of live munitions scattered throughout the country and the relatively high number of injuries caused by digging over the years

[Tony B]

Hey Catweazle, I didn't know you were into shark fishing. :cool2: Could do something more useful with such people, 'Here go hit that shell with this hammer see if its safe'.

[Adam Elsdon]

I get the feeling from the replies that older people are for leaving things alone,where as younger people dont see to much of a problem with it.Maybe its just a time thing.

Who of us would object to the digging up of a roman battle field.not many i think,more like if done by profesionals it would be activly encouraged in the name of

a better understanding.I think once time has gone by and no one is left alive that had any connection to the event it will be seen as ok.I personally would like to see things left alone.The people that rob these sites for profit, i would like to introduce them to water skiing behind my boat blindfold.

 

Whoa there fella, who you calling old!! im still on the right side of 40!

 

Still dont get the battlefield collecting thing, somebody want to explain the interest?

Edited November 1, 2008 by Adam Elsdon

[Jack]

Adam think we need to define battlefield to get us to an accurate view. Are we looking at documented battlefields or areas where armies were?

[Tony B]

I can see the point of visiting battlefeilds, you read the books, but even with detailed maps there is nosubstitute for actually standing at Point X and moving towards Point Y. I also have the greatest admiration for the profesional archeologists and locally based historians. I suppose I'm poacher turned gamekeeper as a kid we used to hunt high and low through bunkers for kit , and certain arears of St Quen dunes for bullet heads and cartridges. I spent a riviting couple of hours last year outside Ieper with a proffesional team excavating a mine crater. the site had been a farmhouse, then 'BANG' it totally ceased to exist when the Candians blew a mine prior to thier attack. Amongst the things ecavatd were parts of a working horse harness, this really hit me, the lifelong love of horses, knowing how much pride is put into building a harness and its value. But the value of any site can be destroyed in a few minutes by senseless rooting about. If you find shrpnel balls, proably British as they are lead, well a couple of those in your pocket, won't ruin anything. If you find a German Shrapnel ball, thats a totally diffrent thing. they are steel so the soil conditions are unusual and there may be other remains preserved in the area. Small details vital importance.

[Rick W]

Anyone watching the Michael Palin programme tonight, Timewatch on the last days of WW1? Just thought of this thread as he was visiting a chap who has been fieldwalking his local battlefields and got his own museum.

[Adam Elsdon]

I seen that, the look on Michael palins face as he was holding a blown apart boot............

[Tony B]

It is the small stuff that gets to you. The walk across the plough should make wanderers think about picking things up of battlefeilds. Though soem of them are to stupid to be allowed to breed.

[Dougiebarder]

It is the small stuff that gets to you. The walk across the plough should make wanderers think about picking things up of battlefeilds. Though soem of them are to stupid to be allowed to breed.

 

And again in English maybe?

[Tony B]

Sorry dsylucksick fingers. I suppose its a result of being lucky enough to be educated by proffesionals. The battlefeilds are where people live, a minefeild, litterally and a cemetery. However there are gouhls who only care about what money can be made from artifacts. Despite stong local legislation people will still desecrate sites, and others will buy.

[Adam Elsdon]

Adam think we need to define battlefield to get us to an accurate view. Are we looking at documented battlefields or areas where armies were?

 

Places like the Timewatch programme Michael Palin was at, a field where fighting has taken place.

[LarryH57]

As with anything in life some things that are OK in one place are not OK in another and the same applies to how much you do. If you go on a tour of the Western Front and you are walking along with your guide and spot say a cap badge in the soil and pick it up who is to say that is wrong. If on the other hand that same badge was placed carefully at the foot of a Commonwealth War Grave it would be wrong to take it. If me and a few friends get the funds together and rope of an area of the Western Front the size of a football pitch and dig it over for as much 'treasure' as we can find then I think that sucks too. But if the Belgian authorities invited in a team of archaeologists to do the same, prior to a new motorway being built on the site would it still be wrong?

 

I have a 1939 Iron Cross from the Battle of Britain which was taken from the wreck of a German plane. It is bent and battered and I know that who ever was the holder, he hit the ground very hard when wearing it and that gives some people the creaps. Does it matter much whether it was recovered at the time by a local farmer or whether it was dug up by aviation archaeologists 50 years later?

[Snapper]

I've only just caught up with this thread.

 

I've become a serious pilgrim to the battlefields and have heard stories from real experts, such as Andy Robertshaw, what the parysites do to places when they strip them for booty. I could not and would not buy this stuff. It sickens me. To stroll a battlefield and find a relic would be a dream to me. But whether I would keep it is a moot point. It would be a place and time thing. If you've read any of the late John Giles' books you will know he was not above keeping helmets and stuff which was still lying around in more liberal amounts during his day.

 

Ransacking a potential grave site should mean jail for those caught. But I am biassed. I agree wholeheartedly with all the views here because what we have done individually has defined a balance. I have brought home the odd shell case and we have previously discussed the issue of UXB material. Grenades, in particular, must be the most stupid of things to pick up - but people do. Lead shrapnel balls, as Tony says, are ten a penny - but I did not know about the German steel variety.

 

If I were lucky enough to own something like the airman's Iron Cross - not by digging it up, but by a form of inheritance; I would cherish it. It is a link to someone, enemy or otherwise, now dead. He earned it. But I would prefer it stayed with him, in that Kentish field or in a grave at Cannock Chase. Unfortunately, stealing from the dead on battlefields starts almost immediately after they die - look at Waterloo where men might have been identified but for the looting - and continues for centuries after. The difference is, after a while it becomes archaeology. It's a fine line.

Edited December 5, 2008 by Snapper

[Tony B]

The whole problem with artifacts is that magic word 'Context'. At the time something occurs, say a plane crash. the locals come in grab stuff, the autorieties ransack it for intelligence, maybe deatils are taken of crew casualties etc. the Event is recorded. It's the middle of a war, other things going on, knowledge is fresh or frankly who cares?

 

Come forward 90 years or so. Living memory has all but disappeared, Take Debroah the tank. The world has changed beyond all recognition. It was known that something had been buried in the spinach patch, the old lady who owned it at the time had seen all the wars and didn't want to know. fair enough she had had her life blighted and wanted to forget. When she dies and the new owner came in his intrest was to find out what was there. The hulk had sat for some couple of years being used for other things before being buried. Right so go steaming in with a JCB, shovel it all out probably end up bashing about the metal with the bucket, what do you get? A mess! The purpose of doing any archeology in a proffesional manner is not for us, but for later. new techniques come along, new ways of processing information. Boys we PRESERVE VEHICLES!!!!!! Not for ourselves but in trust for those coming after us. Why be dissmisive of those who seek the same information from the ground those vehicles travelled and the men who worked them fought? How would you feel if people took bits of your kit? Stand at a showw with aheadlight, what does it mean? F**** All unles it attache dto the vehicle, same with feild sites, every bit can add a story.

[Andy Brockman]

Dear All,

 

First of all sorry not to have posted for a while and a very happy and peacefull 2009 to the HMVF family.

 

I have just picked up on this thread and wanted to add what I and I am sure other archaeologists working in the field of Conflict Archaeology, would see as a very important clarification of the language and terms we use. It also ties in with what a number of other members have already said.

 

Picking up battlefield finds, or detecting for battlefield finds and digging them out and keeping or selling them on is not archaeology.

 

Archaeology is setting out with a question you want to answer, looking for the data to answer it and then publishing your answer and the data you have discovered in answering it, so that other people can argue the toss with you so that through discussion, you get a better answer.

 

Archaeologists only excavate when there is a specific question we cannot answer in any other way and excavation comes at the end of a complex process of documentary and field research using non-invasive methods, such as archaeological Geophysics, including metal detecting.

 

The only exception to this is a Rescue Excavation when a site is in immediate danger of being destroyed and modern planning rules in the UK try to limit this eventuality by making an archaeological survey part of the planning process [PPG16].

 

In the UK Archaeological finds [except those under the Treasures Act or various Acts governing wrecks and crashed aircraft] are conventionally the property of the landowner and may be donated or sold to museums or into the commercial market by that land owner, but most archaeologists would not seek to profit from the sale of finds. The value of an object is not that of the object but of its context. That is where it was found and what was found with it. This means that the accepted best practice is that a site archive of finds is kept together and accessible for possible future study in the local archive, usually the local museum.

 

There are very few exceptions to this usually involving known valuables- such as the UK Governments commercial deal to excavate the probable wreck of HMS Sussex- but this is very controversial within archaeological circles.

 

Obviously laws vary from Country to Country but as a rule sites are increasingly protected by Law and International Convention, although obviously these are not always enforced and there is out and out law breaking going on too, sadly in part at least fed by the demand from some collectors for particular kinds of material.

 

In short, battlefield archaeology [more usually called "Conflict Archaeology," these days as that include peacetime military sites and such things as air raid shelters] is always about education and increasing knowledge. Battlefield finds sold for profit into private collections without provenence is exploitation and in the case where human remains are present are a desecration.

 

Ask yourself- If an ancestor of yours was one of "the missing," say from the Somme, would you prefer their remains to be excavated in a controlled way by a team working with the permission of the local authorities and landowner and with reference to Commonwealth Wargraves Commission so that there would be an attempt to identify the body and trace next of kin, or would you rather see their belongings on a dealers stand at a Militaria Fair. Not that you would ever know they belonged to a member of your family- no context or provenence.

 

These issues are well covered in Nick Saunders book "Killing Time" and in Andy Robertshaw's new book "Digging the Trenches." Details on the book list I posted when this thread got started.

 

I should add that I am not against metal detecting per se- indeed like many colleagues I have worked on projects and written project designs where metal detecting surveys under controlled conditions are a very important tool with work often carried out by colleagues from the metal detecting community. What archaeologists object to is un-controlled, unaccountable detecting.

 

I should also add that it is really gratifying to see that so many members see the destinction between what Archaeologist do when we work on a battlefield and what the battlefield exploiters do. There is that evocative phrase "The Iron Harvest," which is used of objects ploughed up on the Western Front. Archaeologists share the harvest, what we might call battlefield harvesters hoard it and keep it to themselves. They are not archaeologists and they do not do archaeology.

 

On the subject of genuine research based archaeology, there is a new research project starting in the London area this Summer which I hope members might find interesting. Please look for the post on a new Thread in this forum which will go up shortly.

 

Best wishes

 

Andy Brockman