Battlefield archaeology.....education or desecration?

[diver99]

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. .

 

Tony, what do you consider is a 'professional archeologist'?

[Tony B]

Someone who has attanied a recognised qualification, accepts the dicipline of working in a scientific method and puts their results up to peer scrutiny and critisim. This also includes a philosphy and culture that knowledge should be sort, and disseminated, with morale outlook on the work, especially when dealing with human remains. Or if you want a UK law definition: A person, in whose feild, their opnion is sought by thier peers'.

[mash]

On another side what are people's views on the Russian archaeology when they pull out whole tanks and other objects from marshland, these areas are very difficult if not impossible to identify if they are war graves or not. It is amazing to see the vehicles emerge as if they sank yesterday and to see them restored, but do people feel these vehicles should remain buried and forgotten over time or restored and keep peoples memories alive?

[RattlesnakeBob]

On another side what are people's views on the Russian archaeology when they pull out whole tanks and other objects from marshland, these areas are very difficult if not impossible to identify if they are war graves or not. It is amazing to see the vehicles emerge as if they sank yesterday and to see them restored, but do people feel these vehicles should remain buried and forgotten over time or restored and keep peoples memories alive?

 

A very valid question mate....after all.....when does it stop being 'grave robbing' and become 'vehicle preservation'...???

seriously now...if you can recover a tank or aircraft (whether for financial gain or not)... then why not a cap badge or a rusty old bayonet you happan across in a French or Belgium field whilst on holiday maybe????....

 

Let me make quite clear........ I am not in any way advocating marching into a known battlefield and willy nilly start digging holes left right and centre , casting aside anything that doesn't match your criteria of 'collectable'.....

........and neither do I support in any way, the ghoulish behaviour of deliberately digging up items with an intent to sell them for a profit......

...but it'd be as well to bear this in mind.....

....here on the 'western front' (France / Belgium / Germany) we are conditioned to respect these battlefields and lets be honest , our 'society' would discourage anyone digging up a known battle site... especially one where bodies are almost certainly still lying......

...however...it's also as well to remember that particularly on the former 'eastern front' you'd often be dealing with a different mindset entirely.......

First off..... the fighting there was of such an intensity and bitterness that very little 'respect' was accorded on either side.....not to the living and certainly rarely towards the dead.....

..taking this into account it's easier to see why battlefields on the eastern front were pretty much ignored after the war and hence are still to be found more or less 'as they were' and stuffed with collectable items...........scrap steel (because it was worth money ) was collected and anything else that could assist you in the relatively 'primitive' lifestyle in those parts would be picked up and used........but anything else would have been simply discarded and chucked into the nearest shell hole and forgotten about .....including human remains.

To wrap up my opinion I'd have to say ...

If i was to see/find a rusty bayonet or whatever lying under a hedge on the side of a meadow or in amongst the leaves in a long abandoned foxhole in a wood I'd pick it up and cherish it as a real memento but I wouldn't contemplate taking a JCB into the woods and setting to

[diver99]

Someone who has attanied a recognised qualification, accepts the dicipline of working in a scientific method and puts their results up to peer scrutiny and critisim. This also includes a philosphy and culture that knowledge should be sort, and disseminated, with morale outlook on the work, especially when dealing with human remains. Or if you want a UK law definition: A person, in whose feild, their opnion is sought by thier peers'.

 

 

And tony, it wasn't meant to be a critical question, it was aimed at anybody who likes the term 'professional' archaeologist.

 

As it is interesting point, the term professional, as I know of a particular professor of archy whose excavation has been heavily critiscised after digging 'through' and subsequently destroyed unknown evidence at....an area which has big stones somewhere in wiltshire....

[diver99]

Have a look at this site, warrelics eu/forum. It appears that any remains are reported and given a military burial. If these people were not hunting the battlegrounds then the relatives of the fallen would never know where their people lay.I think some of the comments on the HMVF thread are slightly hysterical. Many missing men have been found and reported to the appropriate authorities, is that so terrible.No I do not go out with a detector and dig up anything. But if someone did and they found my missing relative I would be happy.

 

I have tried to contact some of the east europeans about their research and recording methods and received ..mind my own business replies.

[diver99]

Returning this pub discussion back onto vehicles. Should the the recovery of the centaur from the oggin, which received so much publicity when it and the armoured dozer were discovered by divers, (although they were known about since the seventies but nobody was interested then) be carried out, or does this tell us a great story about D-Day, in an archaeological way. Considering they fell off the capsized landing craft, no loss of life, there are no running centaurs but the NAS think this is as important as the Mary Rose. Although the porpoise (ammunition trailer) of which there are no examples has not been mentioned. Perhaps it doesn't add much to the gloss of sexy archaeology...lost tanks of D-Day!

[Tony B]

And tony, it wasn't meant to be a critical question, it was aimed at anybody who likes the term 'professional' archaeologist.

 

As it is interesting point, the term professional, as I know of a particular professor of archy whose excavation has been heavily critiscised after digging 'through' and subsequently destroyed unknown evidence at....an area which has big stones somewhere in wiltshire....

 

Doubtful he would he allowed back again then. :-D

[diver99]

Doubtful he would he allowed back again then. :-D

 

You would think so, but he teaches archy at a major uni and will go on to other sites.

 

Similarly, when euro tunnel link dover-london, anglo-saxon archy being bulldozed away with only cursory examination,

[ferrettkitt]

Digging up a battlefield be it here or abroad and moving human remains about just for profit is a desecration full stop. The excuse that its Eastern Europe doesn't hold water and if you buy from dealers or from a 'collector' you're just encouraging it to carry on.

[RattlesnakeBob]

Digging up a battlefield be it here or abroad and moving human remains about just for profit is a desecration full stop. The excuse that its Eastern Europe doesn't hold water and if you buy from dealers or from a 'collector' you're just encouraging it to carry on.

 

Agree with you .but....I wasn't saying it was ok just because it was an eastern front battlefield .....just pointing out that in that general area an awful lot of folks wouldn't care a hoot about the possibility of finding human remains ....especially if they were the remains of German soldiers...

I'm not condoning that attitude in any way at all..just saying that's how it is.

[Steve Black]

An opinion on this topic from the other side of the pond:

 

Having worked at three protected battlefields as either law enforcement or as a manger, here in the States, I have a view on picking up items that I would like to share. This also may be comparing apples and oranges, but they are my thoughts gathered over a life time of working at and visiting battlefields in North America and Europe.

 

The United States has not fought any modern wars within its boundaries. Yes, there was action in the Aleutian Islands and Hawaii in World War II, but for the most part our battlefields are from the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Indian Wars and are older than the general tenor of this thread.

The battlefields here are like the ones anywhere else in the world. People fought and died. Equipment was left behind and generally the land was returned to what it was used for before the battle took place. What makes the site now special is what happened there. It is no longer just the Jones farm, it is now where people gathered and fought for something that they believed in.

 

There were thousands of battles, skirmishes, clashes and engagements fought here in the 18^th and 19^th century. The overwhelming majority of these are small and not protected by the community, state or federal governments and some have had all traces of the action that took place there removed by urbanization or other means. Most are in the hands of average citizens who may or may not know what happened on the land that they own. Some go through great lengths to protect what they have there; others will let anyone in with a metal detector to scavenge.

 

Some sites, like the three that I have worked at are important enough or were scenes of large battles that they warrant federal protection, but that also makes them targets of people wanting to either make some money or have their own personal collection of artifacts. For years I have people call up and say “I just got a metal detector, can I come out to the park to use it?” At least they would ask and I would explain why they could not come to the park to do that. The ones who did not ask were the ones we have to watch for. I worked in a park where we caught one person, in camouflage, digging at night because he knew it was illegal. His pits and dig spots covered a wide area causing a lot of damage and he ended up going to prison for three years.

 

The reason we do not let people dig on federal lands here is that history is taken out of context when it is done. We learn so much about how a battle moved and progressed from where we find items in the ground. I find it fascinating that you can tract a person around a battle by the spent cartridges that are left on the ground. Allowing people picking up cartridge cases, bullets and other debris of war take away that part of the story. Of course, the huge 20^th century battles in Europe where millions of rounds were expended would make something like we do here much more difficult, but who is to say that future generations will not have better techniques for archaeology and they will be able to learn from what was left behind and make new discoveries.

 

To me is does not matter if the skirmish had only a few dead or the battle had tens of thousands killed, leave it where it lay.

 

Steve

[diver99]

Steve, my sentiments also.

 

The knowledge of civil war battlefields in the uk are being better understood as sites are beng methodically searched , although with metal detectors (sic), and the musket balls found are then put into database re size and therefore what fired them. This is giving a totally different picture of how an action moved, and re-writing books such as of austin woolwych. Similar I think to Little Big Horn and cartridge distribution.

 

 

However, what do people think of searching on the old WW2 air bases in the uk. Future archaeology, or enough evidence already. i.e. how many more programmes on the Titanic do we need to know how it sank?

 

 

Oh, and as an aside, on an episode of N.C.I.S., the murdered civil war re-enactor was buried in a grave, reputed to have been full of civil war weapons, buried at the time in case of a future war. Any truth in this or another good urban myth.

[jaces]

Whereas I see no problem of a organized team of archeologists digging a battlefield to learn more or recover bodies to be identified and buried with family or honor guard present,just for joe public to go routing about disturbing the place I do not think right.

[Steve Black]

Archaeology has been used to disprove so many myths about what happened on the field of battle or to reaffirm oral histories. Little Big Horn is a prime example of that. It is a wonderful tool when under taken by trained professionals and it is something us amateurs can help in. Being part of a survey crew under the guidance of an archaeologist can be very rewarding in helping to understand, retell or confirm history.

At one battlefield I worked in a James Rifle shell was found. It had been fired but did explode. That gave us all a lot to ponder. It was taken back to the lab and x-rayed and it was found to have no charge inside. It was either a case of a manufacturer defrauding the government or very lazy employees circa 1861, but it helped us develop a new story to tell and showed that some things never change.

 

For me as a historian by training and fortunately by trade I have had a wonderful career so far telling the stories the archaeology has brought into the light.

 

Steve

[ferrettkitt]

Agree with you .but....I wasn't saying it was ok just because it was an eastern front battlefield .....just pointing out that in that general area an awful lot of folks wouldn't care a hoot about the possibility of finding human remains ....especially if they were the remains of German soldiers...

I'm not condoning that attitude in any way at all..just saying that's how it is.

 

Such is life, hey I wasn't having a dig at you my high horse galloped away :-D

Edited September 18, 2012 by ferrettkitt
spelling

[Enigma]

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/remains-of-british-soldier-found-on-ginkel-heath-near-arnhem.html