Unearthing the past
Why undertake WW1 archaeology?
Archaeologists bagging finds at Loos. © NML
World War One was photographed, filmed, and recorded in thousands of documents. Surely archaeology can’t tell us anything new about the War? Archaeology has proved that historic trench maps can be highly inaccurate.
Most surviving photographs are official records and don’t show the details that we need in order to reconstruct soldiers’ lives. For example, there are few photographs of trench toilets, a mundane yet important part of daily life in the War.
The site of an excavation, near Ypres in Belgium. © NML
Historians have realised that battlefield archaeology can reveal another layer of experience, that adds to and builds on what we already know about life during the War. It can show the reality of life and death with an immediacy that the other sources do not always achieve. Only small portions of the trenches are visible on the surface today. Most have been filled in, ploughed or built over.
Detailed research using maps, historic documents and aerial photographs, together with various scientific field survey techniques, are required to locate them. For example, overlaying a wartime aerial photograph on a modern photograph helps archaeologists identify potential areas for investigation where little war-time landscape is still visible.
Painstaking process
Live ordnance unearthed near Beaumont Hamel. © NML
Archaeology is not simply digging up objects. Excavation is a painstaking and detailed job. The historical story is told not only by the finds themselves, but also by where they are found, and even the character of the soil around them.
By bringing all the skills and techniques of modern archaeology to war sites more of this information can be analysed and understood.
Unexploded shells
German shell exploding, c1916. NAM 2001-02-256-20
Approximately 720 million shells and mortars rounds were fired on the Western Front between 1914-1918. Millions did not explode. Many were recovered after the War, but experts estimate there may still be as many as 30 million shells and gas cylinders just from British guns lying in the earth along the front line.
Iron harvest
Known traditionally as the ‘Iron Harvest’, local farmers plough out unexploded shells every season. These munitions remain dangerous and fatalities occur regularly. Gas shells and canisters contain agents that remain as lethal as the day they were manufactured.
Looted battlefield artefacts for sale at a car boot sale in Britain. © NML
Despite being 90 years old ammunition – however large or small - can still explode, and in some cases becomes more dangerous with time. Professionally trained bomb-disposal experts always monitor excavations on site.
Law and responsibility
Digging, metal-detecting, or removing any objects from the fields of the Western Front without special permission is not only potentially dangerous, but also illegal. All battlefield sites are protected under French and Belgian archaeological law.
Where human remains are discovered, further responsibilities arise. First, local police must be informed. After the remains are shown to date from the War, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is called in to ensure that the individuals uncovered are given an appropriate burial.
