Plugstreet Blog

Approaching Zero Hour

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

	Readers, we are delighted to be able to announce that the project now has official permission for its excavations at St Yvon this summer. The team will be on site for a week in August and will update this blog with news of finds and thoughts as we did last year.

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Spreading the Word

Monday, July 14th, 2008

	Yesterday Richard and Martin gave a presentation to the annual Conflict Archaeology conference at the Royal Logistics Corps Museum at Deepcut. It was good to present to an audience of interested amateurs and fellow practitioners in the field and the responses to our multistrand approach to the landscape and the individual sites was well-received. _ The event was a mixture of ancient (Ramesses II) and modern (WW1 & 2 and Bosnia) with an interspersing of post-medieval (English Civil War). Tal Simmons paper on Bosnia was hard viewing and listening but ultimately worthwhile, not only because of her powerful delivery but also because it served to remind us of the reality of conflict, including injury, sickness and death in traumatic circumstances. Meanwhile Neil Faulkner’s paper on the Arab Revolt and TE Lawrence threw up some interesting differences with our work, although Plugstreet and Lawrence were contemporary. However there were marked similarities too, including the German trench systems. _ The cross current in several papers was that this is essentially a community endeavour, whether those communities are close to the sites in UK, in Jordan or at a remove in a second or third country, as we are for this project. The nature of conflict means that it may have resonance and meaning years after the event for those affected, even indirectly. Archaeology gives some people the opportunity to engage directly with that heritage and, we hope, offers everyone the chance to hear something new about the events and people in the past. _ Thanks and credit to Andy Robertshaw and his staff at the RLC Musuem.

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Zero Minus 3

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

	Three weeks that is! _ We have agreed the trench locations with the farmer and are set to launch our next season of excavation and survey at Plugstreet. _ Once again a crack team of archaeologists and fellow-travellers is set to embark. This year the team includes some new faces, including two more American friends and our first representative from the Republic of Ireland. Kat has a missing relative so joins the members of the team with that particular attachment to the battlefields. We are also pleased to have Rod on board, after his absence last year due to a more modern war. Welcome to you all. _ As we have said before the idea of No Man’s Land is an international venture and so we go on, our common purpose being to investigate something that once divided us.

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Bonekickers

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

	How could I let the media event of the year go by unremarked? _ Bonekickers started last week on BBC1 in the UK. If you didn’t watch it you missed out. The new series follows the story of fictional archaeologists from the University of Wessex and each week they will be involved in a plot centring around a site. _ I suggest you read the reviews for yourselves. Particularly amusing are the pieces in The Guardian… _ But why am I telling you this? _ If you watch the episode coming up in a couple of weeks you’ll see a dig on a wreck of a Great War Tank and the recovery of its crew. I’ll say no more so I don’t spoil the surprise.

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Tales of the Bustard

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

	Apologies, dear reader, for leaving you hanging with the tales of the Bustard – our heroes in the rain with only a cake to sustain… Unfortunately the rain meant that we had to work twice as hard on the remaining 3 days to achieve our ends, so blogging rather suffered. _ So, I hear you cry, what DID happen? _ We opened several areas, some of which were blank and one of which had the most marvellous section of trench in it. The picture is here: _ Image Copyright:Defence Estates _ Scale is 1m vertical and 2m horizontal. The stain running along the base of the trench is believed to be the marks left by a rotted trench board. _ Oddly there were no 1914-18 finds, by contrast to the 2006 dig when we found lots of materiel. This suggests that the soldiers were made to clear up after their exercise. _ One find that did turn up was a Prehistoric flint in the backfill of another communication trench. It just goes to show that the archaeological landscape is indeed a palimpsest, layered and full of artefacts stories and meanings. _ Copyright: Defence Estates _ Happily the Bristol students were still smiling when they left us (maybe with relief at leaving) and all agreed that it had been an interesting and useful week. _ We would have preferred to have found more evidence of the use of the trenches but the excavated section does show that the soldiers were digging proper features to the prescribed death to afford head cover and to keep you relatively safe in the battlefield in Flanders or France. Good training? It looks like it!

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Rain

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

	It was raining all night and it is still raining now. _ At 8 we decided to stay off site for the morning and see what the weather did…at 12.30 “rain stopped play” and the day was binned. _ Tomorrow everyone will work harder to make up for lost time ;-) _ There will be a cake though, as your correspondent had occasion to go the the excellent bakery on the A303 near Yeovilton. _ More news as it happens!

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Back to the Bustard

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

	Monday 2nd June and we were joined on Salisbury Plain by a team of Bristol University students, ably led by Nick Saunders. They have joined us to spend a week digging on the site of the Anzac 3rd Division training trenches at The Bustard on Salisbury Plain. The site takes it’s name from the large bird and from the nearby pub named after it. _ In 1916 the Australian soldiers took over, adapted and trained in a series of trenches dug on Salisbury Plain to instruct and inform soldiers in the practice of trench digging, maintenance, routine and life. The Australians are known to have spent days and nights in the trenches familiarising themselves with trench life. They are known to have been involved in exercises with live fire and the blowing of a small mine, which they seem then to have “captured” and fortified, just as they were to do at Ultimo crater, during the Battle of Messines. _ The dig is designed to do a number of things. It will see what can be discerned in the archaeological record of the activities of these and other soldiers. The dig will also assess the survival and condition of the remains. Information gained here will add to the picture of preparation for War in 1916/17. _ Richard and Martin led an NML team here in 2005 but since then there has been neither opportunity nor resources to return so the help given by Bristol is invaluable.

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Fromelles

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

	Steve L is a key member of the No Mans Land team at Plugstreet. Steve is one of the core team excavating the mass grave at Fromelles. The grave was dug in July 1916 by the Germans to bury bodies of British and Australian troops killed in an attack on the Aubers Ridge. For 90 years the bodies have lain undisturbed as they seem to have been overlooked during clearance in the 1920s. _ Excavations are now underway to confirm that there are bodies in the large holes identified from aerial photos and geophysical survey. News reports suggest that bodies have been found. However the project is heavily political, as its impetus comes from campaigners in Australia who wanted to find their fallen. This pressure means that the focus is biased one way! The connections felt by descendants in these situations is not like that with any other relative who died in 1916 and who may feel rather remote. Rather the war dead still hold a mysterious power and in connection with them individuals (and not only at this site) develop attitudes more akin to first nation groups than 21st century westerners. This is not to criticise anyone’s opinion but is worth remarking upon. In a culture which does not deal well with death and in which the dead are usually not accorded stature the war dead are fetishized to an unusual extent. However, as I have written here before the emotional dynamics are complex and strange.

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Two Pints of Leffe and a Packet of Frites…

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

	Your intrepid correspondents were in Belgium at the weekend. The intention of our trip was to meet once more with M. Delrue, whose land we are investigating, Claude, chef-patron of the Auberge and all round good chap, and our friends from the Warneton Historical Society. _ We are pleased to report that all the signatures are in place and that we have now formally applied for the permit to dig again. We hope the Wallon authorities will look kindly on us again! _ While we were out there we stayed at the Messines Peace Village again and look set to use them as Dig HQ again this year. As ever we got a very warm welcome and we salute Louise, who is customer-service personified. Good luck with the pregnancy! _ We are several steps closer to another season at Plugstreet.

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