The Archaeology and Anthropology of the First World War: A multidisciplinary approach for the study of a global conflict (original) (raw)

Archaeology on the Battlefields: An Ethnography of the Western Front. Assemblage 11 (1-14).

Assemblage 11 (1-14)

The archaeology of the battlefields of the Western Front has provided an alternative perspective in the development of a new agenda in Great War studies. Excavations provide a viewpoint into the materiality and spatial dimension of the world’s first industrialised conflict. This however is not the only way in which the interests of archaeology can be served. The vast amount of archive material available forms an as yet untapped source of data to examine the landscapes, spaces and material culture of the war. This information which has already been rigorously studied by historians, can be reinvigorated by using archaeological research questions which address unexplored aspects of the conflict. This paper will demonstrate this potential by using archive material from British soldiers who served on the battlefields to construct an ethnographic study of the Western Front. Utilising postprocessual landscape theories, this ethnography will explore how soldiers reacted to the trenches, weapons and the threat of death and mutilation in the war landscape. This not only contributes to the development of archaeology in the study of the Western Front but by viewing the war in a different manner, archaeology can also construct a different remembrance of the conflict.

War between neighbours: the archaeology of internal conflict and civil war

World Archaeology, 2019

All wars are traumatic and leave a deep imprint in the collective memory of a society, but few wars are as traumatic as civil wars. They transform people, collectives and landscapes both deeply and extensively, and have shaped the course of human history. Yet they are also elusive to define – even for historians and political scientists – and have been the object of little theorization. In archaeology, external conflicts have attracted more interest, whereas civil wars have been mainly approached as yet another armed confrontation. Researchers have been looking at the archaeological remains of battlefields, fortifications, camps and mass graves and have provided important insights into a diversity of military aspects, both combat-related and logistical. From this perspective, archaeology is closer to military history than to the social sciences. Without forgetting the military side, contributors to this issue intend to address wider anthropological, historical and archaeological questions, such as the social experience of civil war, traumatic memory, political violence, gender identities and the relevance of landscape and material culture in shaping conflict.