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British Archaeologists find Missing Anzac – 90 years on! Monday, June 28th, 2010
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The Plugstreet Team are very pleased to announce the identification of the Australian Soldier recovered by the team.
In August 2008, archaeologists from the group No Man’s Land – The European Group for Great War Archaeology – recovered the body of an unknown Australian soldier missing since the Battle of Messines in 1917. Extensive detective work and close cooperation between the Group, professional partners and the Australian Army over the past 20 months has now revealed the soldier’s identity as 1983 Private Alan James Mather.
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Pte Alan James Mather
(photo courtesy of Kim Blomfield)
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The Australian soldier’s remains were discovered during work on The Plugstreet Project, an archaeological investigation of part of the Belgian battlefields of the First World War. Archaeological excavation was able to recover the skeleton, as well as associated objects, including rifle, ammunition, Corps badges and the contents of his pockets and haversack. Although a corroded identification disc was also recovered, forensic investigation failed to provide identification details.
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Project co-Director Martin Brown said:
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“Using archaeological techniques to lift and study the remains we were able to build up quite a picture of the man, and this led us a long way to his identity. The badges gave us his nationality. His location in the field gave us his unit – 33rd Battalion – and that tells us when he was killed because they didn’t spend long there. The fact he was wearing all his ammunition and grenades showed that he was in the main attacking force and gave us his Company.
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Excavation was only the first part of the story. Experts from Bradford University cleaned and conserved the objects which helped us to tell something about the soldier himself. He wasn’t wearing his helmet when he died, probably preferring his Australian Slouch Hat as a symbol of unit identity. Equally intriguing were the remains of a German Pickelhaube (spiked helmet) in his knapsack. This appears to have been a trophy of war captured on a trench raid. He should have left it with his heavy kit in the rear but preferred to carry it into action: he probably didn’t trust some of his “mates” in the rear echelon! If he’s survived the war it might now be a treasured family heirloom”
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Project co-Director Richard Osgood said:
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“The scientific input from our academic and scientific partners was astounding. Work by Universities of Leuven, Cranfield and Oxford studying the chemical composition of his bones enabled us to narrow down the place of birth of the skeleton to a few locations in New South Wales. Comparing that data to the casualty lists further reduced the number of possible identities for this man to five possibles.
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Forensic analysis of the bones had given us height, age and likely body type from muscle attachments. Even before we knew it was Mather we knew he had lived a fairly physical life, developing heavy muscle attachments on his bones and showing wear on his spine.
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With such a low number of candidates the Australian Army commissioned DNA testing of the surviving relatives of all the casualties fitting the profile, which resulted in a positive match with one of the Next of Kin donors. This match provided the final proof in identifying Private Mather.
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This result shows how integration of the fieldwork, use of historical documents and cutting edge science can produce very satisfying outcomes.”
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1983 Private Alan James Mather joined the Army in 1916. He was a grazier from Inverell in New South Wales, where his father had been mayor. He was survived by his parents, older twin sisters, Flora and Marion, a younger sister, Elsie, a half brother Doug and a half sister, Jessie. Following his death his Company Commander wrote that he was “one of my best and most trusted men”. He was 37 years old at the time of his death, which was caused by shell-fire on the 8th June 1917 at St Yvon, Belgium.
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He had no known place of burial and so was commemorated on the Menin Gate in Ypres, where the names of missing are listed.
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Thanks to archaeology and science Private Mather will now be formally buried by the Australian Army on July 22nd at Prowse Point Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery. His name will be removed from the panel at the Menin Gate in due course.
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Australian Minister for Veterans Affairs, Alan Griffin said:
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“I am extremely pleased that we have been able to restore the identity of this Australian soldier who was missing for almost a century”.
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ABC Radio Interviews
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For more details on our discovery please see:
The things they carried a talk by Martin Brown.
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Filed under: A Dig Diary, Archaeology by
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Work continues Thursday, May 13th, 2010
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The lack of access to our Blog has not meant that work on the project has been halted. The team have been working hard to decipher clues from our on site discoveries and the archives.
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Today a number of us have been discussing a piece of fabric with a metal fastener.
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The all new Plugstreet Blog Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
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Welcome new readers and those of you who have been following our blog at
http://plugstreet.blogspot.com
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Our regular readers may have been wondering where we have been as the updates on on blog have been very scarce recently. For this we must apologise; Google in its wisdom has frozen our account and we have been unable to update the blog.
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But not all is lost, the old blog entries have now been transferred to our new blog and the Team will be adding new updates very soon.
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We are also in the process of creating a website which will give a more indepth look at our work.
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Cross-Media Challenge 2009 Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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© Jacqui Bellamy 2009, Pixelwitch Pictures
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The PlugStreet Project (pitched under the title “Magnum Opus) was selected as one of five finalists for the National Film Board of Canada Cross-Media Challenge 2009 competition at The Sheffield Documentary Festival. Angela delivered a presentation to the international judging panel and gathered audience, which was well received.
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© Jacqui Bellamy 2009, Pixelwitch Pictures
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Unfortunately we didn’t scoop the main prize, but were very pleased to have reached the final and obtained some useful feedback and encouragement.
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Finds from 2009 Saturday, September 26th, 2009
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In a recent post we promised to show a few of the finds recovered from the site this year. Here is a small selection.
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Thanks are due to Rob, Egon, Shirley and their team in the findsroom who cleaned, catalogued, conserved and generally made things recognisable again.
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A set of German ammunition pouches.
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The plate and badge from a Saxon pickelhaube helmet.
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A patent medicine bottle – troops often took their own cold remedies and lice powders into the line.
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Lots of cartridges, mostly fired, which are probably evidence of battlefield salvage that someone dumped in a position when he couldn’t be bothered to carry them to the rear!
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Our star find,the German 1915 snipers face mask. This is a particularly evocative artefact as it leaves no doubt about its evil intent. No aesthetics, just malevolence. It is also very rare, only one of 1500 made.
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And we found all this rusty munition but thanks to Gontrand and Rod it wasn’t a significant problem. There are German stick grenades and trench mortar rounds, as well as a British Stokes mortar bomb and some other bits and pieces. DOVO have now removed them from the safe area on site.
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Recording Methods Sunday, September 6th, 2009
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Those of you that have visited us on site will know of all the many methods we employ for recording our work. One of these is to film our work to provide detail on decisions made and methods employed. This has the added benefit of the potential for producing documentary work on the excavations. Angela and Derek have filmed all of the fieldwork so far and Angela has now put together a 1 minute clip of the work as a trailer for a documentary proposal. We hope this leads to further work for the project!
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Food & Drink Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
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Without the assistance of Claude and Nelly at the Auberge in Ploegsteert we wouldn’t have the successful, nor as well fed project that we do.
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For amazing moules or the best carbonade of beef, you should visit the Auberge, just opposite the Ploegsteert memorial to the missing. Claude will also do amazing vegetarian food!
www.auberge-ploegsteert.be
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Thanks again, from the whole team!
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Over the Parapet Sunday, August 9th, 2009
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As promised, here are some photographs of the project, these are of the trenches excavated but there will be more, including finds coming soon!
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The blown off roof of the bunker in T3. The small scale is in the alcoves for used to store German stick grenades, ready for use in an attack.
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Remains of the battered German bunker in T4
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The remains of the collapsed shelter in the side of the crater investigated in T6. More to see there next year, I feel!
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The intercutting German Trenches in T5. These had been filled by the upcast from the mine! The postholes were supporting the revetment of the walls and were almost a metre deep!
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Part of the amazing architecture in T1.
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Brian, Avril & Egg hard at it with trowels in T2, only to discover in was empty – still, even negative evidence is evidence!
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Henry and Bev working in Trench 4.
As you can see the team were pretty busy. Next time, more images of the treasure uncovered!
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Ave atque Vale II Sunday, August 9th, 2009
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As Richard and Martin were on the ferry out to Belgium they caught the end of Henry Allingham’s funeral in Brighton on a TV in the ship’s lounge. Meanwhile, Harry Patch was buried in Wells while we were actually engaged in work on site.
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How poignant to be engaged in a project as the events it investigates pass from memory into history. Harry Patch would have heard, or felt the Messines mines go off, as he was nearby at the time.
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We wonder how long it was between the death of the last Roman, Saxon or English medieval monk and the first archaeological excavation of their sites? We feel strangely privileged to stand on the threshold.
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Our work is driven by academic considerations but it also embodies acts of remembrance for in the action of investigation we remember, respect and commemorate the people involved here, of all nationalities and whether in uniform or civilian clothes and in some small way restore them to history by our narratives.
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