The Physical Perils of Cold War Archaeology

Several months back, Sam White, a collector of Civil War artifacts was killed in Chester, Virginia when the seventy-five pound, 140-year old cannon ball he was restoring abruptly exploded, killing him and raining shrapnel in a quarter mile radius around his home. The tragedy led me to consider some of the hazards of military (aka battlefield) archaeology in general, and the physical perils of Cold War archaeology, more specifically.

At first, it seemed implausible that I could identify any true hazards associated with archaeological research on Cold War sites. I mean, aside from a few paper cuts one might get perusing documents in an archive, or the occasional blister from heavy handling a trowel, there appeared to be few things that could befall the Cold War archaeologist. It appeared that the unfortunate artifact collector in Virginia led a far more dangerous life than any Cold War archaeologist.

However, when I actually began to consider some of the hazards that one might run into in the process of conducting an archaeological investigation of someplace like a Cold War nuclear weapons development or testing site, the perils were suddenly very serious and very real.

Obviously, one of the first hazards that come to mind at a nuclear site is the potential for exposure to ionizing radiation. While the nuclear materials used at weapons laboratories were fairly well controlled throughout the Cold War, radioactive contamination is a lurking danger at any of the former nuclear testing site, but perhaps not in the way one might think. The danger is not due to the possibility of finding large chunks of uranium or plutonium, these were too valuable to be left lying around and too easy to detect when lost. The danger at a site like the Nevada Test Site or at certain Pacific Islands is more likely to be due to the probability of stirring up old radioactive fallout during an archaeological excavation. Many of the “dirtiest” fission bombs sucked up tons of dirt or coral in the explosion, mixed it with radioactive isotopes of varying half-lives, and then dropped it as fallout anywhere from seven feet to 7000 miles from ground zero. As a result, digging through fifty-year-old soil anywhere in the US might expose a person to latent fallout to some degree, but digging through fifty-year-old soil at the Nevada Test Site is certain to expose you to far more. I believe that one would need to inhale a considerable amount of fallout dust to pose any real health danger. Nonetheless, it is a potential peril of Cold War archaeological practice.

At other kinds of nuclear weapons sites, like missile silos or strategic bomber bases, the danger from radiation is almost nonexistent, unless the site was somehow inadvertently contaminated. An example of this is an Atlas F missile site near Roswell, New Mexico that was contaminated in the early 1960s as the result of a fire in the silo that destroyed the missile and its warhead. Other than in a situation like that, nuclear warheads were never opened on airfields or in the silos, thus making the chance of radioactive contamination virtually impossible.

ICBM silos, however, are likely to pose other more industrial-type environmental dangers as a result of the various kinds of fuels, cleaning solvents, and once-common Cold War construction materials, like asbestos. Chemical compounds like isonite (isopropyl nitrate), samine, and melanj were used in liquid rocket fuels for both short and long-range missiles by various nations. Chlorinated organic solvents like trichloroethylene, carbon tetrachloride, and trichloroethane were often used for cleaning in missile silos, as well as in other parts of the military-industrial complex. Residues of these compounds remain in the soils surrounding numerous Cold War sites despite ongoing efforts by the departments of Defense and Energy to remediate these legacy wastes.

Other common site dangers range from those created by rodent, insect, or snake infestations in abandoned buildings and underground facilities to the incalculable perils posed by time-weakened walkways and collapsing passageways. Even though the only individuals who seem to currently assume these risks are taggers, scavengers and “urban explorers” who have gained unauthorized access to places like abandoned missile sites for their own ends. However, even professional and avocational archaeologists conducting site surveys could face the physical and environmental risks left by a decaying Cold War infrastructure in the form of open, but hidden, holes and pits filled with water or even chemical wastes.

Even some less obvious perils could be encountered in conducting archaeological research on Cold War sites, include the unearthing of unexploded ordinance or land mines, small arms cartridges, and even high explosives (HE). These dangers vary by site location and by the actual risk level they pose, but all pose threats that are not normally found in other historic or prehistoric sites. Perhaps, not surprisingly, I have little desire to detonate even the smallest small arms cartridge hidden in the dirt using the point of my Marshalltown. Likewise, nothing would seem to take the fun out of a field survey of a former explosives firing site than the discovery of chunks of unexploded HE capable of blowing up my truck if inadvertently detonated. And, as Sam White’s accident proved, the tools of war make no differentiation between combatant and collector and are often deadly for many years.

I assure that the point of this litany of perils is not to scare anyone away from the practice of Cold War archaeology, or an attempt to give the field some “street cred”, but simply to show that the hazards of battlefield archaeology can be as simple and as menacing as a seventy-five pound cannon ball and that it will probably take more than my favorite Marshalltown and a box of Sharpies®, or even a brown felt fedora and a bullwhip, to conquer some of these real Cold War villains.