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| Auteur: | de Meyer, Mathieu. |
|---|---|
| Titel: | Inventarisatie van archeologische resten uit de Eerste Wereldoorlog en de mogelijkheden voor onderzoek naar sporen van andere conflicten: Battlefield Archaeology in West-Vlaanderen |
| Volume: | VIOE-Rapporten 02: Centrale Archeologische Inventaris(CAI) II. Thematisch inventarisatie- en evaluatieonderzoek |
| Jaar van uitgave: | 2006 |
| Uitgever: | VIOE |
| Korte inhoud: | The province of Western Flanders contains a
particular kind of heritage: the World War I remains.
The German-Allied frontline (the ‘Western Front’),
which crossed Belgium from Nieuwpoort (Nieuport)
to Mesen (Messines), is world famous. The Ypres
Salient is the best known part of it. Less known but
at least as well preserved are the coastal defences and
the Hollandstellung, which is a defensive line along
the Belgian-Dutch border. Making an inventory of
this heritage (consisting of the remains of missing
soldiers, trenches, metre gauge railways, (deep)
dugouts, concrete shelters, etc.) is not an easy task.
Therefore the study of the so-called trenchmaps
(maps which were made during the war and indicating
trenches, metre-gauge railways, wire entanglement,
etc.) and aerial photographs from the Great War are
important sources of information. Parts of them
have been indicated in GIS (Geographic Information
System) and the CAI (Central Archaeological Inventary).
In 2001 a first attempt was made to make an
overview of the archaeological World War One
heritage in a couple of villages: Houthulst, Klerken,
Jonkershove and Merkem. This region is not a part of
the Ypres Salient, but the German frontline follows
the border from Merkem along the Yser River and
the Ieperlee Canal (this stream runs from the Yser
to Ypres). Klerken, Jonkershove and Houthulst were
part of the German backlines. The forest of Houthulst
was used as the headquarters of the Germans for both
the Yser Front and the Ypres Salient. It is clear that
the region was an important area during the Great
War. At first an inventory was made of the classic
archaeological heritage (e.g. Prehistoric, Roman,
Medieval remains). In a next phase trenchmaps and
aerial photographs were used to locate the World War
One remains. Locating the huge amount of structures
on modern maps proved to be a very time-consuming
but very interesting task. Besides that, trenchmaps
did not seem to be accurate enough to make a decent
inventory of them.
At the time there wasn’t enough time or money
to make a full inventory of World War One remains
in Flanders. That is why the CAI-team focussed on
the seriously threatened areas. Several techniques
had to be tried out. The first opportunity came
as a result of the “A19 project”, the first big scale
‘battlefield archaeology’ project in Flanders. By order
of the former minister of Interior Affairs, Culture,
Youth, and Civil Administration for the Flemish
Community, Paul Van Grembergen, the VIOE
(Vlaams Instituut voor het Onroerend Erfgoed – Flemish
Heritage Institute) was put in charge of evaluating
the archaeological heritage on the (possible) future
A19 motorway trajectory. The study of the World War
One heritage was going to be especially important,
because the threatened area consists of an important
part of the Ypres Salient. Here the combination of
trenchmaps, fieldwalking and aerial photography was
crucial for the assessment of the archaeological value
of the area and for planning and achieving excavations
of nine different sites. These excavations started in
November 2002. The combination of an intensive
GIS study with fieldwork proved to be useful.
The first step was to locate all the major battle
lines and hinterland of the different armies involved.
Therefore some trenchmaps and aerial photographs
were used, combined with several written sources.
With this information a large campaign of fieldwalking was started on the future A19-track. Farmers
and (ex-) inhabitants of the region were interviewed
about their knowledge of World War One remains in
the area. This also gave us some very valuable information.
Everything has been drawn in several GIS
themes. Based on that and based on a study written by
Prof. P. Chasseaud from the University of Greenwich
(Department Of Military Cartography) nine zones
were selected on which further research had to be
done. Until now, some of those areas have been excavated. Other areas have been studied using resistivity
and magnetometry surveys. The aerial photographs
used for the study are British aerial reconnaissance
pictures, dating from the First World War and are from the Imperial War Museum’s ‘Box Collection’ in London and the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres. Most of those pictures have been georeferenced on modern topographic maps (scale 1:10,000). Trenches, barbed wire, tracks, old field boundaries, battery positions and so on could be located exactly on the map. This is of course a very rich source of information, not only to select zones to excavate, but also to help to interpret the trenches and other structures which are excavated or located during the geophysical survey. The large amounts of pictures which are available for a small area show us the history and evolution of the war in its geographical (and archaeological!) context. Of course, it is also an indication of the complexity of the research, given the continuing change of structures. The results of the archaeological fieldwork are very promising: well-preserved trenches and duckboards, ammunition depots, all kinds of artifacts, human remains, etc. All this shows that the use of trenchmaps and aerial photographs, combined with GIS, can provide us a lot of information. They should be used in all archaeological research about the ‘Great War’, or Battlefield Archaeology in general, whenever possible. To make the research about World War One remains more organized, a new ‘battlefield Archaeology’- unit was set up in November 2003, a co-operation between the VIOE and several partners. In 2004 this department was transformed into the Association for World War Archaeology (A.W.A.). Also in 2004, a large scale inventory project was launched. The Ypres Salient and other frontlines are inventorized using aerial photographs and trenchmaps in a GIS system. This new project is a co-operation between the In Flanders Fields Museum (IFFM – Ypres) and the Flemish Heritage Institute (VIOE). |
| Bron: | de Meyer M. 2006: Centrale Archeologische Inventaris (CAI) II. Thematisch inventarisatie- en evaluatieonderzoek, VIOE-Rapporten 02, Brussel, 43-74. ISSN:1781 4936 |
| Uri: | https://id.erfgoed.net/infocat/publicaties/206 |
| Bestand: | https://oar.onroerenderfgoed.be/publicaties/VIOR/2/VIOR002-005.pdf ( 2.6MB ) |
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| Bibliotheek: | Exemplaar aanwezig in catalogus VIOE bibliotheek |
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