Including digging the trenches, which came out in hardcover in 2008. He was recently given the prestigious honor of being named a fellow he will be sharing onh us today his work archaeology. Welcome andrew robertshaw. [applause] good morning come everybody. Thank you very much for the invitation. Thank you very much for coming out today. I hope to make this interesting. I want to look at a number of things. A new discipline of archaeological i will field archaeological battlefield archaeology. Individuals on found in 2005. I want to start with a joke. Doing british way of things. I was asked to give a talk to a society of genealogists. They take themselves terribly seriously. Thes why im a member of society of family historians. The story i told them was based on the 1920s. The british comedian named max miller. When he was about 22, he went and saidsaw his father i want to marry miss green. His dad said you can marry her. I had a bicycle and i got around a bit. She might be your sister. Went back and said ive been going out with announcement. I want to marry is smith. Got aroundcycle and a a bit. You cant marry her. She might be your sister. He give it another three months and he came home. He said ive been talking to my dad twice about two girls i wanted to marry. On both occasions, he said you cant marry them because when i was your age i had a bike and got around a bit and before i met your mother, things happened , both girls cadet and my sister. What should i do . She said, dont worry, hes not your dad. Genealogistsf didnt take very well to that. Im hoping it will do rather better this morning. This is what we are talking about. We are talking about battles and wars. Almost 200 years ago, there was a battle in belgium. Buried. L officers were the other ranks when into bits. Into pits that did not change until the 20th century. The monuments of the western front that we are familiar with, later taken over by the employer will imperial war graves commission. Some of these guys were not so fortunate. We have the missing. Partly of what im talking about is the missing. They are recorded on a number of memorials. Monuments which actually recorded those people who ended up buried in trenches. People buried in shell holes. Buried in collapsed dugouts. Will of waysne the you might have ended up missing. With 72,000memorial names of missing on it. If you were a british soldier, were required to take out of your pocket a coin to throw it to get has once, throat and get heads twice and then three times. If you did it seven times, thats your chance of being on here. Because they are missing, they exercise an immense amount of interest on behalf of the families who have nowhere to grieve. Which is why we end up with the tomb of the unknown soldier. Teeth dealing with a number of different sites. Feet and set of british boots. This is all we found of this soldier. How many sets of human remains have your team discovered . The answer is about 27. What about 27 . What if this was traumatic and b amputation . He might have ended up in a wiltshire. He might not have died on the spot. Ended up in a wheelchair. The farmer got up his tractor and found the sets of remains, put them in a crate and handed them over to us and said, what is this . Take them over to the commonwealth contact the german equivalent of the war funded bymission voluntary contribution and say we have found these remains. In the middle of it is an id tag. This is a man killed almost at the end of the war. Killed in august of 1918. For most of our projects, its actually being looking for sites. We dont go looking for the dead per se. Other people have. The project looking for australians in the last couple of years produced 250 sets of from cemeteries. They were dug up and remarried. You can question the morals of doing that. Belongedp of remains to a group of friends alters killed in the very beginning of the great war. Novelist andas a poet. Fournier was famous before the war. Famous because of his death. Buried with his platoon in an improvised burial, as we see here. 20 years ago, a group of french archaeologists said we ought to go find him and thats what they did. Wouldent out to do what i call prospecting for the dead. They knew where he was and they found him. The identified virtually everyone by name. This site is now open to the public. You can go see where they were found. Elsewhere, human remains are found almost on a monthly basis. Very often, the head of development these bodies are men found by jack and his team. The archaeologist for the city. My role on these occasions if im called is not to deal with the forensic side or anthropology, but to deal with the question of dating of these debts. How do i know that . Im supposed to be an expert on equipment. These germans here clearly died after september 1916 from the area they are found. Helmets. Steel with them is there equipment that helps mediate them. We can look at this man here lying on his back wearing a a burial from 1914. They did away with a spiked helmet very rapidly in combat because it gives them away. Having established those credentials, what we might consider then is this. This is one of the most famous sets of remains discovered. This is quite late in the war. 1917. These are members of the rims grims. The journalist decided these bodies here have been linked by the fact that each mans elbow is over the man next to him. The germans decided this was some sort of dance but cobb macabre. T one thing you have to be aware of is you cannot be too romantic about these things. This is a burial view of the same site aerial view of the same site. If you look over here, youve got somebodys laying with legs and arms in place but nobody. The bodies had been laid out by their friends. Interesting that you would lay out bodies when youve found body parts. A set of burials that have been hit by a shell. You have to be very careful. All the skills we actually used csi are what we have to bring to this. Humanles that governed remains in the western front, you need the machines from the french authorities and permission from the commission. We were never able to use dna analysis. However, when they set out to , it was 500 bodies committ prefigured on the use and recovery of dna. Which is why they have identified over 120 of these men by name. In a previous project run by the thep of enthusiasts called diggers in belgium, they were covered over 100 bodies. Identified one by name. Their methodology was very poor. My methodology was born here. There are lots of projects. We started in the village of ocean villas. To give you an idea of how early it wasnt how many experts there were this is a communication trench behind british lines. It is not desperately exciting. In terms of methodology, greatly important. We went into this area havent been aware that the owner was area wasdetector being metal detected on a regular basis. We agreed to help her by taking her garden and seeing what is there. We knew it was there because it shows up on the aerial photographs and the trench maps and we knew it was right behind her house. We did not know what was in it. What we found was brick lining. The bottom of the trench would be lined with a layer of bricks. They looked into the hole and said that was all done by the french. Had he war when they thats what they did. We do not have the heart to tell checked. We we knew who had done it and how long it took. About the brick line trenches of ocean villas. Thats exactly what we found. Then we discovered a layer of shattered titles on top of the bricks. People said this had come from the stage in the war when the roof was on the house, the shelling meant the roof fell into the trench. All of that would have been logical had it not been for the fact that archaeology does not stand alone. We checked the war diaries. We found in the diary of the 87 in the village of the brick linings are a problem. And theome slick stretcher bearers are coming in with boots around their nexcks. This has got to stop, it says. No war diary ever talks about how you deal with slippery trenches. If you are in a village and you have slippery trenches, you get soldiers to go get the broken slates and titles and smash them up with sledgehammers and mallets and put them in as a nonslip layer. Health and safety. 1915 style. That means we can now say that thats why did we bother . There is always something to learn. In the early project, having gone from ocean villa, we were asked by the bbc to do a project. The director of the project is here. What a coincidence. Dugoutslooking for the in which wilfred owen shows us in the poem blinded for the century. The century is blinded by a shell. A very moving poem. With money from the bbc, we would use a team of archaeologists and find the entrance and talk about it. We felt. We found many things. We failed we found 1915 and 1916. We found a set of human remains on day one. We were not looking for them. This is something we knew might happen. We actually had a headless body. The body had been untouched by the plowing but the plowing had taken up the head. We had somebody come onto site who turned out to be a journalist. She came along and looked at and looked remains at him and said i suppose you will use dental records. [laughter] which is interesting. We found around his neck and identity tag. We continued to work on the project to find the dugout and wilford owen. He found another set of remains. A british soldier lying on his back on top of the trench system. He was on top of the trench system. The other was behind. Oa mine. Lled in by the regiment he was in was only there for one day. They lost 110 attacking this position. We then continued to work and found this man lying on his side bearing close to the first soldier and slightly behind the second. Officer lying on his side. He had his watch, a mouth organ, harmonica and a flint scraper. The sky became known as the archaeologists. This guy became known as the archaeologist. And the youngs british soldier. We asked permission to do dna and we were told you could not do it. We approached the germans and said do what you like as long can you pay for . We have tv money. Thats fine. [laughter] the work was done. It was very interesting. No money ishey had because they are actually entirely sponsored by the public. They have still one million missing from the Second World War on the Eastern Fronts. Back at the university of london , people got to work. We have already gone here. We had already gone to the monuments of the missing. Took it in turns to read out the names of those members. We knew we had read his name out. What we did not know was who he was. He was then buried in october. With full military honors. They took it in terms to read his name out. A rather smaller list. 110 missing. It was nothing we could do other than to say we knew his height and age. That was it. As soon as he was buried, we were approached by two sets of families who said we think its our granddad were great uncle. Can we provide dna . Yes, but no sample is allowed to be taken. Every second of july when i go to the monument now, i will find there is on the grave a little rose tree left behind by the families. Red rose of lancaster. Back in the laboratory, the identity tag was cleaned. It was extremely unclear what it meant. It said reserve regiment and had number seven company. There was nothing we could do. At that point, i would have given up. Luckily, i was not there. The south korean student working on this one turned it on with back and cleaned the back as well. Honess and of it is the name of the village she came from. We then got in touch with somebody whos next bird in the german army in this area. He is actually from new york. Ralph whitehead was able to give us some help. Somebody whos an expert in army in thisea in thi area. He said his number was reserve regiment 121st, number seven company, number 228. He was able to give us his height and age. 36 years old with six children. He died on the third of june 1915 fighting the french. Which i found somehow reassuring. My grandfather was not serving at that point. It felt better knowing that he had not been killed by a brick. By a brit. Alfred said would you like to meet the family and we said yes. They still live in the village. Within 24 hours, we have his picture. Honess ande shows his brother. Children,hind a six one of whom was born on Christmas Eve 1914. He was still alive his grandson went to see him and said they have found your dad on the battlefield. The gentleman said i always knew they would. I always knew they would. Die onan was going to 1916 fightingly us the british. It is behind the german lines. Exactly the same as the ocean villa. When we did the archaeological dig her, we were unable to get our accommodation. Thebbc book us into village. We followed the route of these men to their deaths every time we went to site. There was more work to be done. We had to work on the officer. And thethe harmonica watch. Past six. 10 minutes of the things that have if you dont loot them, the enemy will. We found this complete pocket watch. He had his tobacco and money and watch. And he had a book. The book was very decayed. It wasnt sent back to ucl and they got to work on it what did they discover . It was a bank book. Incame from a village northern germany. We got in touch with ralph white and said is there any officer in the german 121st reserve regiment who has any contact at all with northern germany . Is one. Yes, there hes an officer killed on the sixth of june, 1915. Number seven company. He was the decorator. He kept his bank account in northern germany. We checked the bank out. There was not any money in the counts. Thats in the accounts. [laughter] we found, strangely, even if the young soldier had survived, he would not have been able to use the bank. It was jewish owned. We touched one more and then covered quite a bit of another one. His grandson put an advert in the newspaper. He said we found the young soldier. Is there anybody out there in southern germany related to albert . Intoan called allison came the university for the englishlanguage theater company. She was running a play about the First World War, and irish vc who comes back to the island. Someone said, can you ask your husband, crawl, whether he might carl, whether he might be related. He said he is my greatuncle. He went missing in the First World War in june of 1915. The family never knew what happened to him. Guess what, i have a photograph of him. This isnge thing about where carl was studying english. He was writing a dissertation on his favorite war poet who was wilfred owen. This photograph is marked by burns. You can see scorching. This is the only thing recovered from the house when it was bombed in may of 1945. You go from one more to another. One war to another. That is allison and other members of the team. We went to see where this soldier had come from. The two germans were buried here. About 118 miles from where they were found. The germans cannot afford to bury them in a local cemetery. At least they were buried with their comrades. They decided to put up a monument erected at the edge of the field where the men were found. When it was unveiled, the stoodor of the museum with me and said this is the most unusual monument. Is it the smallest . No, its not the smallest. Ath two germans and a british soldier on one monument. 100 years later, a reconciliation still takes time. This turned up on ebay of all things. There is a wreath hung in a trench. Down there, it says in memory of comrades. Allen had that arrived before the archaeology, it would have been inexplicable. Except that we know this was dated june, 1915. Those men we found had been buried in shell holes or scratch graves on the back of the trench with the intention that after the war the german soldiers would come back, recover their comrades and give them the honor burial they deserved. The fortunes of war did not allow that to happen. I want to at least have the great privilege of being buried. Expert on the recovery of human remains is saying if you fail to identify people, whether deliberate or accidentally, you have effectively kill them twice. This now becomes explicit until we get the archaeology. This would have made no sense at all. You need to understand the evidence weve got here. Im going a bit further to justify what were doing. This is the site of the battle by them inre rated the dark. This was a massive human remains. They came in with tortures and this was a massive human remains when we got back there on a wednesday. We decided that wed leave a permanent Security Guard on until we finished. We were going to protect these m men. We would never figure out who that man was. That afternoon in my clumsy attempt to help i managed to find a german soldier. Im probably one of the only academics ever to be able to say that i had broken the jaw of a german shoulder with a shovel. He was 19 but he had been dead for some time and in fact he was part of a mass burial. We had a number of bodies one on top of the other but because the conditions we had an incredibly high level of survival. We had leather, we had paper, we had cloth. In fact we had virtually everything. The only problem we had was we almost poisoned ourselves. What we had not realized is that the reason the middle of these bodies were missing is they were actually being a layer of cloth to help them decompose. Working in sixhour shifts through the night and day we didnt realize we destroyed the chloride line. We had to open up the tanks but at least not get problem with hands, skin and eyes. What we found were well preserved sets of human remains. The bavarian archives were incredibly useful. They survived the Second World War intact. We were able to reconstruct how the bodies were laid in the grave and then do this. This is the back of a german shareholders tunic. He is a bavarian. Their records survive intact. The rest of the german records from prussia were destroyed by allied bombing right at the end of the Second World War. You dont stand much chance with them. This guy right in the middle of our pile of bodies had a complete uniform and the ribbon of the iron cross 2nd class. I dont know what he thought of it but he pinned it on to his uniform and it was in place. Up on his shoulders he had here number 16 for 16 bavarian reserve regiment. A very famous regiment. We were able to recover this postcard. That postcard gives us his name. His name is loepold. Killed on the 13th of october, 1915, during fighting. Epold. Killed on the 13th of october, 1915, during fighting. Opold. Killed on the 13th of october, 1915, during fighting. It says in the records of munich that his place of burial is not known. Well it is now because i was there when he was buried. Very importantly we found this. This is the remains of a patriotic songbook from 1914, the beginning of the war. Leopol was exempt from military service. Why . He had done his two years training but now age 22 he was not expected to fight because he was a concert violinist. He was a concert maestro. He was exempt from service. Sadly, his brother otto was killed in the battle of the frontiers and this man, leopold, volunteered. He went off to work. What do you think a concert violinist as a soldiers chances are of being any cross . Iron cross within three months. Hes doing very well. More importantly there is an outbreak of musicality in the regiment when they form a band and an orchestra. It has to be leopold. It is not very often that you can do a link from a First World War to Elvis Presley but im going to do it because this song book includes the words and music to a song Elvis Presley brought back from his service in germany when he served in the american military. The song is wooden heart. Some of you remember as a german marching song. So weve identified our soldier. We knew about his brother. Wed seen memorials. We wanted to try and find the family to get the photograph. Wed done it before so why not . Why wouldnt it work . We went to find where the family had lived. We knew the address. His father was an electrician. His mother ran a tobacconist. When we got there, there was nothing at all. It was a memorial park. We walked over to look at the black for the memorial park. It said it was a memorial for allied bombing in 1943, that wiped out the entire city block. Thats why there was no family. But it was one final twist to the story. Do i remember i mentioned that leopold was about 23, a real artist. He was a corporal. We knew that from his collar dogs. He was also a recipient of the iron cross 2nd class in the list regiment, the 16th bavarian reserve regiment. Guess what . In the same year leopold died in battle, we know who killed him and how he died. There was another soldier, not german but austrian, a volunteer. Number three company of the list regiments. Slightly older than leopold, an artist of sorts with the iron cross 2nd class. That man was adolf hitler. As i said, if you look at this war, you would immediately see another. Were now in a situation where were continuing to do work. We have never yet gone prospe prospecting for the dead but wed been approached to do just that by a large number of people. We have a burial of at least one plan, and probably his comrades from the village. Ive spoken to the mayor and said wed like to mark the plot. We know exactly where he is. The mayor said, i wouldnt bother. Why not . He said the way it works in french law, if a family dont claim building plot for 100 years, we can sell it, the Community Gets the money and well build on it. So if youre going to do any work youve got about a year. We have another site, a site for the lancasters, about 54 bodies. We know where they are buried because the man who buried them was a german officer wrote to the family of the young officer and said i buried your son and his comrades and he gives a glass reference. It is now under a glass house in Large Industrial area. We think that site needs protection. And all the others. Were not going to necessarily look for the dead but when we do well be ready. What were trying to do is say here to all of you, this story is, in some ways, depressing. Somebody once said that a death in a war is like throwing a stone into a pond. The ripples go out and they come back. As ive just proved, it still matters. No matter it is a hundred years ago. And. Doesnt matter to me and my team whether were dealing with french, belgium, german or occasionally british. We will do everything we can to make sure these men get the best treatment possible top ensure that they are buried not as an unknown soldier but either by their regimentregiments, or if lucky, by their name. Of course, as ive indicated, the good news is because the australia australians, they cant prevent us from taking a dna. Im not sadvocating for prospecting for the dead. Frankly for britain there are too many of them. What im telling you now, when human remains are found, i will do everything i can with my small team to ensure every means available are used to establish who they are. We do not want to see these men killed twice. Thank you for listening. Wed now like to take questions from the audience. If you raise your hands, ill come find you. If you could speak into the mike, that would be great. Any questions. So given the concerns that you raised about looters getting there before you have a chance to work, and the massive scale of potential sites along the front, im wondering if your team or other teams are working on efforts to proactively survey the western front especially using satellite. I mean all the things that we use for survey all over the world in archaeology to try to identify where some of these sites might be, then without having to get on the ground, if theres already a building over it, then move on but work on the sites that are still accessible. The situation right now is that were looking at one particular area. Were looking at the area famous for the memorial to the weve been offered a chance to use the technique you are talking about. We dont have 30,000 pounds. Thats what it would take to do that survey. The point about the raid, by the way, was that if you dig a hole anywhere in europe, basically looters regard it as being an invitation to come and have a look. So what we now do is whenever we do any work, we have 24hour security so weve learned flnow. We very carefully back fill when were done so it. Doesnt encourage people. Sadly, only a few years ago i was asked by somebody to go to their house. They said whats this, andy . I opened up a garbage bag and there was a set of human remains in it with no insignia. I said where did that come from . It came out of the field from the side of my house. Someone had come at night, dug this poor guy up and put him by the outside of the hole. All the medal and insignia were gone. I took him back to where i was staying with my family. Couldnt find my wife, found my daughter, i said wheres mommy, they said mommys gone shopping in your car. That wouldnt have been too bag but that was the car with the garbage bag in the back. So i had to phone her and say there is a big surprise in the boot dont open it. There can be some dark humor in this. The type of archaeology that youre doing on the Eastern Front as well . I was asked to go and have a look at a site near to berlin. My guide was a guide called dave schiller, an exisraeli special forces man, who now advises the german army. When he pick me up from the airport, i was a bit surprised to see when he reached up to open up the advisor on the car that he had a 9 millimeter. I said, pete, why do you got a. 9 millimeter . He said doesnt worry, youve got an automatic as well. Its in the glove compartment. Can i ask this . Whats the problem here . The problem is how the pocket is is being stripd basically by members of metal detecting groups who are sponsored by the ukrainian and russia mafia. They will defend their pitches. It is also being defended by the neonazi far right who regard it as being sacred site. So we said we both have weapons if anything kicks off. I didnt do the project. I just thought i know what shallow burials look like. I didnt want to be one of them. But, yes, there are big problems with the Eastern Front and its probably getting worse. Dry weather recently means that that lot of very wet sites are drying out. If you want to go on ebay and look up for sale german i. D. Tags, theyre available. If you buy one from them, youve ensured that that german soldier will remain missing, whatever his politics. By the way, even if you dont buy them, theyll still dig it up. Certainly the purchase of nazi memorabilia is fueling that particularly grizzly business. Here in the United States we have the Civil War Preservation trust which we attempt to protect the battlefields and especially where people have fallen. We regard those as sacred sites. Now ive been all over belgium and done the visit. Are there preservation efforts going on within particularly france and belgium and those areas, to try to protect these areas because it appears that the relic hunters have really gotten out of control really. I mean theres probably a place for those things but theyre apparently not following. If youre caught with a metal detector in france there are no penalties than the fact that you lose your equipment, you lose your finds, you lose your car and you go to prison. Theyre really quite strict. We have to ask permission through frempnch authorities to use any kind of that equipment. They are absolutely rabid about it. Were talking about the extent of the battlefields. Massive. If private owners gives permission, prying eyes will never see them. But youve got signs everywhere. I was actually there recently and someone was with me, an american, said, do you have gophers in france. I said no. Thats call a metal detectorist. What appears to be holes all over the site was quite clearly some very fresh work. Of course what that means is they are taking away the evidence. If its in the plow soil it doesnt really matter very much. But if its still in situ, it is associated with human remains and we all know what that means. One of the themes i picked up on your talk is the considerable loss of data as a result of the Second World War. You talked about the german side but also the destruction of Public Record office during the blitz in 1940. I was wondering if you kwo coul expand on that a little bit and talk about some of the road blocks about that and give the audience an perspective. Because of the german bombing from 1940, 60 of British Service records are destroyed. They can never be reconstructed. It means that for my grandfather we have a metal index card that says he was eligible for two medals and he was in two ledge mea regiments. That isnt correct. He was in three. There are medieval archives, all gone. However if you are bavarian, theyre untouched because they were not there. That state system is very, very useful. There is at the moment an initiative going on in the uk run by the Imperial War Museum asking people to basically add information to whats already in the public doe plain. The very limited information. Including the photographs. Clearly once youve got a photograph, sad, but somehow it makes it all the more poignant once you have those images. Theyre ret tro fitting saying people, give me the information that we can then put back into the public domain. I know during world war i that medical Field Hospitals were moved close to battlefields. I mean obviously death in a medical Field Hospital, they knew who they were dealing with. But ive always wondered, because of the accounts ive read where so many people had to be buried, ive always wondered if they werent in fact reburied. I always wondered if you came across any sites that were clearly tied to medical Field Hospitals. Because were not looking at formal burials. Were normally looking at hasty battlefield burials we dont know. However, if you look at any list of british cemeteries, it will say things like all hallows at an advance station. Avs. The most famous british doctor in the great war gets two vcs in the course of the war, dies of an abdominal injury. Hes buried in a cemetery associated with a casualty clearing station which is the next step back. There are places on the coast, a big Training Camp and a big Field Hospital is where we have one of the biggest cemeteries. These are guys that guy of disease or die of their wounds. And women as well. In fact, its interesting because it is the only place where they actually do anything to indicate rank. In every other cemetery whether youre an officer or another rank, you get the same burial. But there what theyve done is put a semicircle of officers in and interspersed it with german troops. Beyond that, weve got indians an chinese. It is actually a segregated cemetery which is very, very unusual and it is not the way it is done at the time, except there. It is very u fleak. Unique. Thank you. We are due for a break. Well come back at 11 00 for our second speaker. Thank you. Youve been watching cspans American History tv. We want to hear from you. Follow us on twitter at cspan history, connect with us on facebook at facebook. Com cspan history where you can leave comments, too. 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