Military Archaeology and Cold War Archaeology

Previously, I wrote about the relationship that I thought existed between the fields of Cold War Studies and Cold War Archaeology. In this post, I’d like to push that thinking in yet another direction and consider the relationship that exists between the fields of Military or Battlefield Archaeology and Cold War Archaeology.

The archaeology of battlefield and related military sites is a well-regarded subfield of historical archaeology. In the United States, the field rose to prominence through the work of archaeologists like Douglas Scott, whose archaeological investigations have caused scholars to re-interpret the battle events and history of the Battle of Little Big Horn. Around the globe, major battlefield archaeological research has been conducted on the US Civil War, English Civil War, and World War One. Currently, there are no less than half a dozen Russian battlefield archaeology “search parties” actively working to locate the remains of Red Army soldiers killed during the Second World War.

And this research is making a mark. Just in the past several years, a number of popular books on the field have been published on the field, including, by Tim Lynch and John Cooksey’s Battlefield Archaeology (2007), Combat Archaeology: Material Culture and Modern Conflict (Duckworth Debates in Archaeology) by John Schofield (2006), and Fields of Conflict: Battlefield Archaeology from the Roman Empire to the Korean War by Douglas Scott, Lawrence Babits, and Charles Haecker (2006). Although the National Park Service really leads the national battlefield archaeology effort, other institutions like The Center for Historic and Military Archaeology (CHMA) are also contributing. The CHMA is an academic research and experiential learning program at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio that provides an undergraduate program for archaeologists focusing on historic and military archaeology of Civil War sites. Meanwhile, the Journal of Conflict Archaeology serves as an leading publication for a field “devoted to battlefield and military archaeology and other spheres of conflict archaeology”. Clearly, military archaeology is an established field of inquiry and one that underpins my own archaeological interests, as well as those of others.

Paralleling the question I posed earlier of Cold War Studies, one can reasonably ask, what can the field of Cold War archaeology contribute to the world of military archaeology? The answer would seem to be: a lot. As ancient and medieval conflicts have long been studied, so too are 18th, 19th, and early 20th century conflicts now being studied. It seems logical that the Cold War conflict will eventually become a focus of both history and archaeology. Following the practiced principle and principals of battlefield archaeology, Cold War archaeology could learn to learn as much from its sites as military archaeologists have already learned from theirs. Imagine an archaeological investigation of the former Soviet missile base near San Cristobal, Cuba leading scholars to re-interpret the events and history of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the same way Douglas Scott and his team led to a reinterpretation of the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Obviously, any union of the two would necessitate getting beyond the notion, if such a notion exists, of battlefields as singularly representative of military archaeology. At a minimum, it would require the recognition of Cold War battlefields in their more transient and intangible forms. These new battlefield forms include the more familiar airfields, military bases, underground bunkers, missile silos, radar installations, and nuclear weapons testing sites, but also some lesser-known sites and structures, such as those built to sustain civilian communication networks, continuity of government, or civil defense.

One example of this sort of lesser-known structures are a chain of underground repeater and main stations built by Bell Telephone Company in the 1960s as part of an Armageddon-proof transcontinental coaxial phone cable system. Called the L-4 line, the system consisted of buried concrete repeater stations located every two miles along the transcontinental route and larger main stations (manned underground facilities) located at 120 to 160 mile intervals. Constructed of reinforced concrete and is covered with several feet of earth, both types of stations were designed and built to survive everything up to a direct Soviet nuclear warhead blast. The main stations featured blast doors that closed automatically in the event of a nuclear blast, gas-turbine engines for providing emergency power, and ventilation systems designed to filter air inside the building and prevent the entry of airborne fallout, as well as sleeping accommodations and decontamination showers for workers. As a critical link in the civilian communication network, the Cold War fought by those working in these Bell Telephone bunkers was on a battlefield unseen in previous American wars.

With a few philosophical compromises, military archaeology and Cold War archaeology seem destined to work together. Perhaps what remains to be seen is if Cold War Archaeology can first stand on its own before attempting to run with the “big dogs” of military archaeology.