What are they?

A site of conflict can be many things. It does not necessarily have to be a place where actual conflict was experienced. There are many related activities prior to this type of event such as recruiting, training, and staging. The same can also be said of the aftermath. Taking care of the wounded, the burial of the dead, the internment of prisoners, and commemoration, are just a few associated acts. Thus what can be classified as a site of conflict is extensive: recruitment office, barracks, parade ground, entrenchments, field hospital, war cemetery, monuments, e.g.

Development of conflict archaeology

The roots of conflict archaeology lay in battlefield archaeology. It was in 1983 that a prairie fire swept across the Battlefield of Little Bighorn (1876) in Montana, USA. After the tall grasses that covered this area were burnt, exposing the top soil, a team of archaeologists headed by Douglas D. Scott and Richard A. Fox decided to examine the site the following year.

This project made several significant archaeological advances. The novel incorporation of a metal detector survey, for instance, had impressive results and set a precedent for its academic application. There was also the use of ballistic forensics to map the movement of individual combatants. Ultimately the study of battlefields was legitimized and a new sub-discipline of archaeology was born.1

Cultybraggan Camp in Scotland, which housed Nazi prisoners of war.

Yet there is more to a battle than just the actual site of confrontation. With time this became more obvious to archaeologists and surveys on related places gradually increased in number. It was in 2000 that the University of Glasgow hosted the first Fields of Conflict conference, which finally provided a platform dedicated to the discussion of conflict sites beyond just battlefields.2 Since then conflict archaeology has been firmly established as another sub-discipline.

Within this sub-discipline, however, several subfields exist. The tactics and technologies used by humans to physically challenge one another have and continue to evolve. Take for example the continent of Europe. Here the armies of the 17th century generally deployed in linear formations and were armed with pike, musket, and sword, but less than three centuries later, their descendants were mechanized and used sophisticated weapons during the Second World War. These two periods require a unique approach, with the latter being concerned:

with the social, cultural, psychological, and technological as well as military complexities of recent conflicts, and their powerful and unpredictable legacies.3

Nicholas J. Saunders, archaeologist

Sources

  1. Works regarding the findings of this project include Richard A. Fox, Jr., Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), and Douglas D. Scott, Richard A. Fox, Jr., Melissa A. Connor, and Dick Harmon, Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000).
  2. For a history of the development of conflict archaeology, see Andrew P. McFeaters and Douglas D. Scott, ‘The Archaeology of Historic Battlefields: A History and Theoretical Development in Conflict Archaeology’, in J Archaeol Res (2011) 19: pp. 103-132. Link (accessed 17 April 2020): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226110611_The_Archaeology_of_Historic_Battlefields_A_History_and_Theoretical_Development_in_Conflict_Archaeology
  3. Nicholas J. Saunders, ‘Introduction: Engaging the Materialities of twentieth and twenty-first century conflict’, in Nicholas J. Saunders, ed., ‘Beyond the Dead Horizon’: Studies in Modern Conflict Archaeology (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2012), x.