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The Great War: A New View of the Slaughter Based on Archaeology
Conference
Published on
02 October 2014
Updated on
19 June 2017
Colloquia
The Archaeology of Violence
International colloquium organized by Inrap and the Museum of Louvre-Lens.
October 2, 3 and 4, 2104 at La Scène du Louvre-Lens
The archaeology of violence: wartime violence, mass violence
by Gilles Prilaux, Inrap, Champagne-Ardenne Regional Archaeology Department, et Alain Jacques, archaeological Department of Arras
Archaeological interventions in northern and eastern France often turn up scars in the ground caused by fighting during the First World War. These stigmata - shell craters, trenches, tunnels, makeshift shelters, dumps and munitions of every calibre - can be counted in their tens of thousands, but the remains of 700,000 soldiers also lie beneath the battlefield. Direct testimonials of indescribable slaughter come to light in various forms, from the remains of a shrapnel-riddled corpse to a leg left in a shell crater and more complex groupings enabling us to imagine the soldier’s state of mind in the face of horror.
Yves Desfossés has been regional curator of archaeology in Champagne-Ardenne (Regional Cultural Affairs Department of the Ministry of Culture and Communication) since March 2003. He found vestiges of the First World War while taking archaeological samples before the Artois stretch of the northern high-speed rail line was built in the early 1990s. While excavating and studying Bronze and Iron Age sites, his periods of specialisation, he has carried out many interventions in this new field of archaeological research.
Alain Jacques has been head of the archaeological department in Arras since 1977. He has carried out many excavations in the ancient and medieval parts of the city. The creation of a 2,000-hectare industrial zone in the Arras Urban Community prompted a vast preventive archaeology operation that revealed many traces of the First World War. A new field of investigation opened up, and the Great War became a major theme of the research programme in the administrative centre of Pas-de-Calais.
Gilles Prilaux a research engineer at Inrap, has led preventive excavations in the north of France for approximately 20 years. He focuses on salt production during the Gallic period, publishing a book on the topic in 2000 ("European Proto-history” collection, Monique Mergoil, publisher). He has done important work on vestiges of the First World War, mainly in the Somme and Artois regions, for over 10 years.
Bibliography
Desfossés Yves, Jacques Alain, Prilaux Gilles, L'archéologie de la Grande Guerre, Éditions Ouest-France, 2008.
Alain Jacques has been head of the archaeological department in Arras since 1977. He has carried out many excavations in the ancient and medieval parts of the city. The creation of a 2,000-hectare industrial zone in the Arras Urban Community prompted a vast preventive archaeology operation that revealed many traces of the First World War. A new field of investigation opened up, and the Great War became a major theme of the research programme in the administrative centre of Pas-de-Calais.
Gilles Prilaux a research engineer at Inrap, has led preventive excavations in the north of France for approximately 20 years. He focuses on salt production during the Gallic period, publishing a book on the topic in 2000 ("European Proto-history” collection, Monique Mergoil, publisher). He has done important work on vestiges of the First World War, mainly in the Somme and Artois regions, for over 10 years.
Bibliography
Desfossés Yves, Jacques Alain, Prilaux Gilles, L'archéologie de la Grande Guerre, Éditions Ouest-France, 2008.
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