The Unknown Warrior (37 page)

In each chapter I have emphasised the plethora of evidence available to archaeologists in determining the presence of warfare and the lives of those who fought. One must bear in mind a multitude of caveats when examining the archaeology of violence. Were items really damaged in combat? Could those individuals who were buried with weaponry be called ‘warriors'? Were weapon injuries combat-related or the result of judicial acts, murder, or accident?

We must also consider the limitations of the archaeological record. Clearly, only a sample of evidence for combat survives (material left on the battlefield could have been removed by the victors and later societies); death in combat need not result in palaeopathological evidence and the suchlike. Carman (1997a: 236) provides a useful discussion of these problems, but states, in a paragraph worth quoting at length, that:

Specific archaeologies can also emphasise the specifics of individual times and places to reveal the context of violent acts. These will reveal the circumstances (individual and social) of violence, the causes of it, and distinctions between victim, perpetrator and witness. At the same time, archaeology can demonstrate the different forms of violence apparent in varying contexts: war as opposed to individual assault, symbolic or symbolised/‘non-violent' violence and sanctioned versus non-sanctioned violence.

An archaeological analysis of the material that
does
survive can provide a vivid illustration of the lives of the ordinary infantryman (and woman). This narrative is far less frequent in the historic resource, although some accounts of the lives of the private soldier do appear. Archaeology has the potential to speak without bias or overemphasis. Our dataset can show, for example, the victuals available to soldiers, how they spent periods of spare time, how and where they trained, whether this training was carried out to the exact textbook specifications in combat, and the weaponry that was actually used. By studying the remains of those who fought and fell, we can also uncover the illnesses from which they suffered, how they died, and what religion, if any, they looked to in their final moments.

Too many histories examine the lives of the commanders of armies, or their exaggeration of tactics and the outcomes of battles, yet all those who fought are equal in the archaeological record. Sometimes, archaeology will confirm historic tracts, on other occasions new theories will emerge as a result of these studies: perhaps troop dispositions differed from the official campaign histories; sometimes soldiers adopted tactics learned on campaign rather than at the depot (after all, digging a trench under artillery fire is somewhat different from performing a similar task on exercise).

This book looks at the ‘common' soldier, the infantry private, as it is this individual who does the bulk of the fighting in most wars. These men and women need not be professional soldiers (as we have witnessed with the composition of forces in the First World War) and may not want to be a part of any military action. Yet our examination throws up much to illustrate the lives and deaths of such individuals, lives and deaths that are not written about, but which provide powerful, mute testament within an archaeological context. Some themes recur: the soldier's use of tobacco and of alcohol; the playing of games to alleviate boredom; the men's humour; their desire to leave a name or an image of themselves as a warrior as a permanent marker of their life.

The one element that is present in all periods is the burial of those about whom we know nothing other than their death in combat – soldiers who are ‘unknown' (see Plate 30). We can tell much about their lives and deaths and yet, ultimately, we do not know who they were. It is to them that this book is dedicated.

Glossary

Ampoule
glass container or phial containing medicine such as iodine, which was easy to administer in the front line

Antiquarian
the earliest archaeologists – although many sites suffered from poor recording of the works they undertook, archaeological techniques and the discipline as a whole emerged as a result of their investigations

Arquebus
early form of muzzle-loading firearm

Auxiliary
non-citizen troops of the Roman army, supplementing the citizen-soldiers of the legions – these troops formed both cavalry and infantry units, with auxiliary troops frequently taken from the conquered regions

Basal looped
type of spearhead that had loops at the bottom of the blade, which were either decorative or used to tie the spearhead to the shaft

Beaker
ceramic drinking vessel that formed the essential element of the Beaker burial package of the Early Bronze Age

Blockhouse
concrete fortification or strongpoint forming an essential component of First World War defence systems

Carp's tongue sword
Late Bronze Age sword type found predominantly along the Atlantic coast; so called because it used a leaf-shaped blade for cutting, which tapered to a point – the ‘Carp's tongue' – for stabbing

Chape
metal attachment, sometimes hooked, to the end of the sword scabbard that enabled the removal of the blade from the sheath by a mounted warrior

Coif
protective mail garment, hood-like in form, that covered the neck and head of the warrior

Cuirass
body armour that protects the torso of a warrior, comprising back- and breastplate; frequently made of metal, but sometimes possibly of tough organic materials, such as leather, which rarely survive in the archaeological record

Excarnated
exposure of the dead body in the open air before a later burial or ritual deposition of the defleshed bones

Gladius
standard Roman infantry side arm; a blade weapon that was ideally suited to stabbing at close quarters

Jack Johnson
British nickname for a type of German artillery shell; named after the US World Heavyweight boxing champion of 1908–15

Lamellar
armour type composed of metal plates sewn into a fabric tunic

Legionary
Roman infantryman

Longbarrow
Neolithic burial mound,
c.
4000
BC
–2200
BC
, often with separate chambers Lorica hamata Roman mail armour composed of interlinked circles of iron or bronze

Lorica segmentata
Roman legionary armour composed of a series of hinged plates; it would have had either a fabric or leather backing, or would have been worn over a tunic and was probably used for around 200 years from the first to the third centuries
AD

Lorica squamata
Roman armour composed of a series of metal scales (either bronze or iron) sewn onto a tunic, often of leather

Matchlock
early form of muzzle-loading firearm, discharged when the priming pan of gunpowder was touched and ignited by a smouldering length of matchcord, held by the musketeer

Midden
curated refuse dump; in the Bronze Age (
c.
2200–700
BC
) these appear to have had complex functions related to feasting and the deliberate deposition of waste materials

Minnie
nickname for German trench mortars, derived from
Minenwerfer
mine thrower

Morion
form of helmet of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; there were several variants, including those with flat or peaked brims and coned or flattened body, and it could have a crest or a ‘stalk' at the peak

Optical Stimulated Luminescence
dating technique that measures ionised radiation, which is stimulated to produce measurable luminescence to calculate the time since the sample was buried

Palaeoenvironmental
study of ancient environmental indicators

Palisade
timber fence barrier used on hill forts and defended sites

Palstave
bronze tool, similar in form to an axe, with the blade divided from the haft of the weapon by a ridge

Pike
main pole-arm of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, composed of a long wooden shaft tipped with a metal blade or point; the blade often comprised arms of metal, which ran down the length of the pole to prevent it being lopped off by an enemy's blade in action (pike formations acted together to provide protection for each other and for the musketeers)

Pilum
Roman infantryman's throwing weapon comprising a heavy wooden shaft and long slender metal neck and point; it was designed so that it could not be thrown back and would bend on impact to encumber any enemy unfortunate to be transfixed by it

Pugio
Roman legionary dagger, probably used rarely in battle compared to the
pilum
or
gladius

Radiocarbon
scientific dating technique used to measure the level of carbon 14 isotopes

Rapier
slender, tapering weapon used in a stabbing fashion; in the Bronze Age the rapier was replaced as the weapon of choice by the sword

Ricasso notch
small notch below the handle of a Bronze Age sword, above the blade, which was used as part of the warrior's grip

Round barrow
circular burial mound of the early Bronze Age period from around 2200
BC
; often it would have central burials with later satellite depositions sometimes from different time periods, such as the Anglo-Saxon era

Rune
form of writing script used by Norsemen

Samian
Roman pottery form, red in colour, often with designs and motifs on the outside

Seax
pointed, single-edged knife of Anglo-Saxon date, generally quite short

Spatha
Roman sword, longer in form than the
gladius
and thought to have been used by cavalry

Sprue
flash of waste lead left on the musket ball when removed from the mould; this lead was smoothed off by the musketeer before use Stela (pl. stelae) upright stone which has been carved; these often had depictions of the warrior and their arms

Stratigraphy
study of archaeological layers; by careful study of the stratigraphy, the archaeologist can evaluate a phase-plan of the site (in stratigraphic terms, the undisturbed site will have the earliest deposits as the bottom layers and the most recent as the upper layers)

Tassets
articulated plates of armour attached to a breastplate, which cover the upper thighs of a pikeman

Trilithon
combination of three stones as part of a henge monument, for example the combinations at Stonehenge with two uprights and a cross stone lintel

Umbo
the metal shield boss of the Roman legionary shield – the
scutum

Whizz-bang
a term used by Allied troops (mainly British and Commonwealth) to describe, in onomatopoeic form, the sound of German field artillery shells – originally of 77mm calibre

Wristguard
protective piece of equipment used by the archer to prevent the bowstring damaging the wrist; in the Bronze Age Beaker period, this appears at times to have been formed from stone, and from the Medieval periods there are surviving leather examples

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