Some Historical Archaeology in Action

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Just a short epilogue of sorts to yesterday's post:

Here are a couple of pretty neat examples of historical archaeology, which involves the complementary study of the historical and archaeological records in order to understand the human past.

The first example is a study of World War II battlefields in Northwestern Europe. Some people may be surprised to discover archaeologists investigating an event 'as recent' as World War II, but in fact there really isn't any 'minimum date' in archaeology. World War II was a hugely significant event in human history, and it created a substantial material record (i.e. structures, changes to landscapes), which has the potential to inform our understanding of events beyond what was written at the time.

The second example is from my hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand. Almost four years ago the city was struck by a devastating earthquake. Archaeological investigations of historic areas of the city, founded in 1850, have been ongoing as part of the clean up and rebuild. For those interested in historical archaeology, Christchurch uncovered, the blog of one of the archaeological consultancies working in Christchurch, Underground Overground Archaeology, is worth a follow. 

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