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Hastings and Other Historic Battlefields of Importance…Which Can’t Be Located!
The critical historic battlefields of Chalons (451 AD, Europe saved from Attila the Hun), Tours (732 AD, Europe saved from Moorish invasion), Hastings (1066 AD, the Norman Invasion), Bannockburn (1318 AD, Scottish Independence) and others are of extreme interest to archeologists, historians, and tourists alike, yet…no one knows exactly where they are! Herein lies the tale of the Battlefield Archeology and its unique challenges.
American Civil War Battlefield sites are relatively recent, and turn up many metal artifacts (bullets, buttons, sabers, etc) along with some mass burial sites. Everyone knows where World War I and II battles were fought. Yet curiously, battlefields more than 500 years old are largely void of telltale metal, wood, or bone, and even have scant evidence of mass burial. Either a) These artifacts have decomposed, b) Participants cleared the battlefield, c) Archeologists are looking in the wrong places, or d) All of the above.
Battle of The Teutoburg Forest (Romans vs. Germanic Tribes, Sept. 9 AD): This is actually the exception that gives battlefield archeologists hope. The Germanic tribes of the era led by Arminius, drew Roman Commander Publius Varus into a trap, whence 16,000 to 20,000 Roman Legionnaires were slaughtered, thus ending Roman expansion across the…
