Archaeology Actually

Kia ora, During a trip to the Republic of Korea (aka South Korea) in 2017 I came across a piece of the Berlin Wall standing in a small square in Seoul.  The Berlin Wall was a concrete barrier that once physically and ideologically divided the city of Berlin in Germany. It came to symbolize the wider division of Western and Eastern Europe during the post-World War II conflict  between "western Capitalism" (the USA and allies) and "eastern Communism" (the Soviet Union and allies) known as   the Cold War .  The piece of this monument in Seoul had been gifted by the Berlin State Senate in 2005 to stand as a memorial and as a sign of hope for the future reunification of the divided Korean peninsula. November 9 2019 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (or more precisely, the lifting of restrictions on movement between the east and west). This anniversary had me thinking a bit about a developing interest of mine - the archaeology of the...

Kia ora, Today (25th April) is ANZAC Day (ANZAC is an acronym for Australian & New Zealand Army Corps), an official day of commemoration in New Zealand and Australia of the sacrifices made by our servicemen and women (past and present). The day itself is the anniversary of landings by the allied forces of the First World War on the beaches of the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey, in 1915.  As noted elsewhere :  "In the wider story of the First World War, the Gallipoli campaign made no large mark. The number of dead, although horrific, pales in comparison with the death toll in France and Belgium during the war. However, for New Zealand, along with Australia and Turkey, the Gallipoli campaign is often claimed to have played an important part in fostering a sense of national identity." It may surprise many to hear that archaeologists have been actively involved in the investigation of the campaigns of twentieth century wars. For example, some World War II archaeology that I...

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 ...