Battlefield Archaeology

[WGrab]

Does anyone have an address, point of contact, email, etc for a public or private organization that conducts trips to the old Eastern Front to research the battlefields, exhume and reintern the bodies of soldiers, and the mapping of points of historical significance? I am not interested in tours or relic hunting, but rather a well led battlefield archaeology dig. Thanks a lot....Bill

[Jean-Loup]

To the best of my knowleadge, no proper/official archeology is done on the eastern front. The clossest you might come to archeology will be by digging with local and passionate relic hunters, who also sometimes find bodies, and then hand them over.
Official organisms for finding bodies (Volksbund) have no time to waste with archeology, and attempt to do all their searches as fast and in the cheepest maner possible.
If you go digging with relic hunters, nothing stops you from digging in an archeological manner if you wish, while you are with them.
You could organise your own trip, with the help of local diggers. Everything is possible with enaugh money and diplomacy.

JL

[Johnny R]

I do not think that "no time to waste" is a fair assessment of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge does.

Their stated primary mission (since 1919) is to maintain existing cemeteries not to "find bodies" by excavation or facilitate burials through requests to repatriate human remains.

Although they have been involved in excavations (like Jean-Loups) and reburials etc. they do not have the funding to pay for excavations or professional archaeologists/forensic anthropologists to lead scientific projects.

Technically it should probably fall to the Deutsche Dienstelle (WASt) but as far as I know they also do not conduct recovery projects.

I am only aware of professional archaeological work being conducted at WWI battlefields on projects by European scholars.

As far as I know what is happening in Russia and on the Eastern front is conducted by groups of people who are not professionally trained and for the most part collectors, students volunteering to reclaim Russian bodies or amateur historians.

I am sure some of the human remains found in the "digs" are repatriated or reburied but considering some of the excavation photos I have seen with stacks of skulls and disarticulated bones in piles, skulls with cigarettes in mouths oe baseball hats and so on, in most cases the integrity of the individual remains has been lost. At best the ID tag will indicate the remains were located and the person if confirmed to have been killed.

If you have concerns for being ethical in these excavations I would choose wisely.

While there are exceptions of excavations done carefully and with forethought to record data properly and keep human remains seperate for reburial, many of them are out for the "goodies" and appear to have little respect for the dead or a desire to see the human remains reburied intact etc.

There are many videos of "digs" on You tube of people wearing SS camo and drinking booze while tearing up old emplacements.

Good luck in finding a academic project. As a professional archaeologist with extensive experience working with human burials and skeletal material I would like to see these digs stop but I realize that will not happen.

This sort of work by untrained people is 100% illegal in the United states and intential disturbance of human remains is a serious crime for a good reason.

[Simon O.]

That's an interesting point you touch on Bill, I hope WWII battlefield enthusiasts see the same kind of transformation over the coming decades that WWI battlefield archaeology has seen.

I don't know of anyone doing proper WWII battlefield archaeology regularly as part of a formal group or association in either the West or East, but i'd be very interested in hearing of anyone that does. I do mean proper archaeology though, surveying, recording, research etc.

[Johnny R]

That's an interesting point you touch on Bill, I hope WWII battlefield enthusiasts see the same kind of transformation over the coming decades that WWI battlefield archaeology has seen.

I don't know of anyone doing proper WWII battlefield archaeology regularly as part of a formal group or association in either the West or East, but i'd be very interested in hearing of anyone that does. I do mean proper archaeology though, surveying, recording, research etc.

AMEN, hopefully this will develop. If things are being destroyed during road construction etc. salvage work is acceptable and understandable and we do the best we can do. Digging preserved sites that are not endangered unprofessionally is not acceptable. I also have come to believe that often the claim of an honorable intention to recover human remains is only a thin cover for the chance to mine artifacts.

[Jean-Loup]

"Their stated primary mission (since 1919) is to maintain existing cemeteries not to "find bodies" by excavation or facilitate burials through requests to repatriate human remains.
Although they have been involved in excavations (like Jean-Loups) and reburials etc. they do not have the funding to pay for excavations or professional archaeologists/forensic anthropologists to lead scientific projects. "

You can split hairs if you like, but whatever their stated mission is; the Volksbund IS, in reality, the organism that is involved in all the searches for former German MIA's; and it IS the organism that is to be warned in case the body of a German soldier is found.
It is not only a lack of funding that stops them from using anthropologists, but also a lack of interest (and understandibly so).
Unfortunately, I must say that many amateur diggers dig more carefully then Volksbund teams do; because they actualy have an interest in what they do, and they are there out of interest and for there personal pleasure.

The Volksbund takes good care of many cemeteries, does good work contacting famillies, etc... But archeology or anthropology is not their jobs; and it is unfortunate that they are responsible for the exhumation of MIA bodies, because a huge amount of very interesting historical information is lost and destroyed.

JL

[WGrab]

Battlefield Archaeology

I truly appreciate the discussion threads. I have searched the internet and I have found a relic group of "diggers" that appeared to honor the dead, in Latvia, but there was no apparent effort made to document the site. This is as close as I have come to a battlefield archaeology project. Thank you all again for an interesting discussion, perhaps a self-promoted trip some time in the future would be the way to go. Bill

[Jean-Loup]

" I have searched the internet and I have found a relic group of "diggers" that appeared to honor the dead, in Latvia, but there was no apparent effort made to document the site."

You can go with those diggers, select a virgin bunker; and exhume it following all the rules of archeology, and document everything you find.

[Johnny R]

I hope people start being more responsible with digging. It is sad to see bone piles of mixed remains all for a handfull of rusty bullets

[Johnny R]

Another thing

I want to stress as well, I think it would be really neat to do open heart surgery but I am not allowed to for some odd reason.

In my opinion as a professional archaeologist people who are not trained should not be excavating human remains. Enough people in the US agree with me to have passed Federal and State laws punishing people who are not at least holders of a MS/MA with proper experience and training for doing this. This is point blank wrong and should be illegal world-wide. It makes me sick to my stomach to see some of the photos of skulls in wheel barrows etc.

[blinky]

"I want to stress as well, I think it would be really neat to do open heart surgery but I am not allowed to for some odd reason."

There are probably several places in the world that would be more than happy to let you try it for a few hundred dollars

I hate to say it but in the long run I think a lot of these amateur digs do more harm to real history than good right now. I'm sure John can tell you how much has been lost through history because of people rifling through sites for whatever reason.....just look at the Pyramids.


eric

[Ypenburg]

"Official organisms for finding bodies (Volksbund) have no time to waste with archeology, and attempt to do all their searches as fast and in the cheepest maner possible."

That's funny as they claim different in their paper, however their "archeology"is intented for finding and identifying human remains, and not the way tranches are build or bunkers or positioned.

[Simon O.]

Quite, The Volksbund has nothing to do with archaeology, same as the commonwealth war graves commission. It's not their job, though they do cooperate with archaeologists where necessary.

John brings up another interesting point here, that of who should be allowed to dig. It's one of the processes WWI battlefield archaeologists have gone through. Battlefield or conflict archaeology is a relatively new sub-discipline within archaeology and even newer as far as modern conflicts go. I would argue that to put a team of professional archaeologists to work on, for example, a WWII battlefield would be about as useful as letting the enthusiasts run wild. How many professional archaeologists have the historical and military technological knowledge that's required? By the same token, how many enthusiasts have the archaeological skills like surveying, recording and excavating?
Then there's the issue of funds, professional archaeologists need paying and someone has to foot the bill. The way forward for WWII battlefield archaeology IMO is for formal groups and associations of amateur volunteers, advised, guided and helped by professional archaeologists, sanctioned by local authorities and answerable to them.

I don't know how many of you have seen the British series 'Time Team' but they've done several programs covering WWII subjects, mostly aircraft recovery, and it's very obvious that the traditional archaeologists were like fish out of water when dealing with the different techniques required in aircraft recovery. Not to mention having no knowledge at all about what it was they were digging.

[john moody]

Hello,

You could try a website entitled "Demjansk Battlefield" they sell ground-dug relics and also offer guided tours and digs. I know nothing of the integrity of this group however!

Best regards,

John.

[Johnny R]

Simon

Simon et al,

I have seen and enjoy time team, it airs on cable here. I saw the episode on the aircraft and noted that they brought in an expert on Spitfires to consult. We are not trained in WWII aircraft etc. that is true.

The points you bring up on professional archaeologists are good. The main thing is that the discipline developed dealing with ancient societies without written languages etc.

Most archaeologists would scoff at working on excavating WWII sites that are only 60-65 years old much less be able to find 10-15 thousand dollars to do a decent job, analyze and publish etc.

I work on very interesting sites that are 6000-3000 years old and it is hard enough to find funding to do that.

I do not really have a problem with people metal detecting etc. and poking around. We work with people who collect prehistoric tools and teach them how to record find locations and document new sites for the Govt. data bases etc. and 90% of the time it is rewarding both for us and for the collector. They find many more things than we would ever be able to without them and it saves time and money for us.

Excavating on private lands is not illegal in the US until human remains are involved. No one may exhume remains without Govt. permission and professional qualifacation. In the State I live in, a board of archaeologists must approve of your qualifacations before you are allowed to work with human remains. In my State, there are less than 15 people allowed to do this. I am one of them.

In sum, it depends on what you are excavating, rummaging through a WH dump full of bottles and shell casing isn't a problem. Using a backhoe to rip out graves and stacking human remains in meter high piles is. That is unethical and you certainly do not need to be an archaeologist to realize that. I would not even call that archaeology, it is looting when finds are not documented and reported etc. and even worse when you start mixing body parts together and putting cigarette in skulls or marbles in eye sockets etc.

I know not everyone does this with malice but once these things are destroyed they are gone forever as is the data. Archaeology is a science not a verb, as I said most the "digs" on WWII sites are just looting. These people are in no way shape of form archaeologists and are not doing archaeology. Look at all the ground dug stuff on Ebay, a lot of it is coming from graves and locations of the dead. Basically it is grave robbing IMO.