Digging deeper is always rewarding. Policy instruments, challenges and recent research on conflict archaeology, WWI and WWII in Flanders

Abstract

In 2017, the government of Flanders decided to award yearly grants for synthesising research on archaeological data produced via development-led archaeology in Flanders (Belgium). At present, no less than 34 archaeological projects have been financially supported this way. Three of those projects deal with the archaeology of modern conflicts. The project 'Conflict archaeology of the Second World War in Flanders' will be discussed in more detail. World War II archaeology is a very young discipline in Flanders, although the enormous expertise in conflict archaeology of World War I caused a turnaround in recent years. Putting all the archaeological information together, it turned out that traces of WWII were already being investigated at 172 sites, far more than expected. Some are targeted excavations on large sites, but mostly they are small traces that came to light by chance. This picture is contrasted with knowledge gained in recent years from historical research and from remote sensing sources. The Centre for Historical and Archaeological Aerial Photography or CHAL (Province of West Flanders, In Flanders Fields Museum, Ghent University) plays an important role here. Over 43,000 historical aerial photographs taken during both World Wars provide a unique overview of the war landscape in Belgium and offer enormous archaeological potential today. A combination of analysis of the digital elevation model Flanders for the above-ground preservation of war traces and the archaeological information from excavations give us an unseen landscape insight.