Cold War Studies and Cold War Archaeology

I've been thinking this week about the relationship that exists between the fields of Cold War Studies and Cold War Archaeology and, in particular, what each field has to offer the other.

Obviously, this thinking presupposes that the fields indeed have an interrelationship and that they are neither incompatible with, nor subsidiary to, each other. While their apparent compatibility, or any lack thereof, is yet to be tested, it is the notion that Cold War archaeology is, or might become or be describes as the “handmaiden” to Cold War Studies––much the way historical archaeology was once described in terms if its subservient relationship to historical studies that most concerns me.

This notion of the handmaiden, for those among us who are not “Old School”, assumes the subordination of one person or entity to another. The founders of American historical archaeology fought long and hard in the discipline’s early days against the use of this label to describe a presumed subservience of the field to the more deeply-rooted discipline of History. What has emerged are two fields, now deeply entwined in a more or less common scholarly domain, yet not always working or playing well together.

Cold War Studies emerged even before the Cold War was nearing its end as a intellectually challenging and academically promising field that includes various forms of inquiry into the political, economic, social, intellectual, and, of course, military aspects of the Cold War, its historical origins, and potential contemporary consequence. The field has found a strong scholarly footing in the recurring declassification of tons (literally) of formerly secret documents from various countries archives and in the sometimes prosaic biographical accounts of Cold War warriors who have trickled in from the cold.

The main British center for advanced study and research on the Cold War is The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Cold War Studies Centre. In the United States, the Center for Cold War Studies and International History at UC Santa Barbara (CCWS) and the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies are two leading institutions. Meanwhile, The Journal of Cold War Studies has since 1999 published peer-reviewed articles based on archival research conducted in the former Communist world and in Western countries.

So what can Cold War archaeology contribute to Cold War Studies? There would seem to be a plethora of ways in which archeological evidence might add to what is now a predominantly archival and biographical understanding of the Cold War. For example, the structural remains of airfields, missile silos, docks, industrial sites, radar installations, and underground bunkers may serve to illustrate the technological evolution of military technologies, buildings, and transportation and communication networks that are not otherwise explicated in either archival or biographical data. The archaeological remains of Cold War sites, even if it is only fences, foundations, overgrown roadways, or trash dumps, may help illuminate the use patterns of structures and the land. Even some less-obvious archaeological evidence, such as distinguishing vegetation patterns, might help us understand the ways in which a restricted area was patrolled by guards, or was concealed from public view.

The relationship between Cold War Studies and Cold War archaeology has yet to bloom. It may be that the field will never develop enough influence and authority (in the form of funding, believers, research, and literature) to be more than the “handmaiden” of Cold War Studies or History, but the potential exists for it to be both a incontrovertible contributor to Cold War historical scholarship and a distinct field of academic inquiry in its own right. Time may tell.