Issue 114

Sept / Oct 2010

news

All the latest archaeology news from around the country

features

MAIN FEATURE: Happisburgh

The project leaders give us the latest findings after six years of research on the earliest humans in Britain.

The obscure ownership of archaeological material

Haggai Mor recently worked in one of the world's largest archaeological store and wondered who all the things dug up actaully belong to?

Finding Boudica's Last Battlefield

With the help of computerised terrain analysis, Steve Kaye has narrowed down the possibilities.

The Lost Anglo-Saxon Church of Westbury-on-Trym

Jon Cannon explores a crypt beneath a Bristol church and is greeted with an amazing find.

Finding Private Mather

A victim of battle in WW1 remembered by his family, is finally laid to rest.

Archaeology: What Is It For?

Martin Carver reflects on how and why archaeologists do what we do.

The Varmints Show

In the Varmints' second exploration of music and archaeology, Breck Parkman is uncovering the 'Whitehouse of Hippiedom' at the Olompali State Historic Park, San Francisco.

science

The dark secrets of ancient peat, the decaying of Star Carr

on the web

Audio-visual presentations online and the 'Visual Essays' of ArchAtlas.

Mick's travels

Mick and Jon share the wonders of Jersey

CBA Correspondent

From CBA Publications Officer, Catrina Appleby

letters

Your views and responses

features

THE BIG DIG: Links of Noltland

Eroding sand dunes are revealing an ancient landscape on a windswept and remote Scottish island.

MAIN FEATURE: Digging for (Invisible) People

Eroding sand dunes are revealing an ancient landscape on a windswept and remote Scottish island.

Dig for Shakespeare

Literary critics may wonder if Shakespeare wrote all those plays, but archaeologists know where to find him.

The Varmints Show

An occasional series specifically for the website, showcasing pop music inspired by archaeology or heritage. The first of the series features Air-Raid Shelter (Pillbox) by The Human Cabbages.

More online features to follow

news

All the latest archaeology news from around the country

on the web

Caroline Wickham-Jones investigates real and reconstructed worlds, and Andy Burnham highlights ancient sites viewable from the roadside, including extra content.

letters

Your views and responses

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

features

Finding Private Mather

It began as a field study of first world war remains in the Salisbury Plain Army Training Estate – a remote landscape constituting one ninth of the county of Wiltshire, and first used by the army in 1897 for cavalry exercises. It ended up with the recovery in Belgium of the remains of an Australian trained for the western front. Martin Brown and Richard Osgood report.

On 22 July, a soldier was buried. Military funerals have become a painfully regular affair, but this one was different: it took place 93 years after the victim was killed in action. Private Alan James Mather died during the Battle of Messines, Belgium, on 7 June 1917. His remains were recovered in 2008 during an excavation for the Plugstreet Project, which takes its name from the British Tommies' mangled pronunciation of the Flemish village – Ploegsteert.

The project is run by No Man's Land, an international group of archaeologists and military historians investigating sites from the great war of 1914–18. It began on Salisbury Plain. The archaeologist OGS Crawford had photographed training trenches there in the 1930s, but they are now levelled. So we led fieldwork to investigate a group dug in 1916 by soldiers of the Australian 3rd Division – part of II Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps). The next step was to follow these soldiers to the western front, and their first major action during the Battle of Messines. How effective was their training?

The Messines offensive began with the detonation of 19 large mines set beneath the German lines in speciallydug tunnels. The mines shook windows in southern England, as Lloyd George's diary records, but they also devastated Germans, breaking their front line, collapsing dugouts and cracking their morale. The Australians attacked near Plugstreet Wood, assaulting German trenches and bunkers before fortifying a crater and preparing the trenches against counter attack. Archaeological deposits and historical documents had already shown how the Anzacs had trained for this on Salisbury Plain, where at least one mine crater survives.

The sides of the German trenches collapsed under shell fire and the shock wave from the mine, but our excavation also provided evidence for the Australian's redigging and revetment. On the lip of the mine crater, codenamed Ultimo, there were positions dug for Lewis machine guns, ready to fire across the German lines to the south or into any counter attack. Artefacts threw light on trench life. Sardine and corned beef tins were accompanied by pickle and HP Sauce bottles – and a bottle for Emo's Fruit Salts, a preparation for upset stomachs.

We found a skeleton on the collapsed rear face of the German front line trench. A team led by a forensic archaeologist was drawn from the wider group. Meanwhile, the project conservator was warned that material would be coming into the lab, and should take priority. Careful excavation began with all finds and events logged, and the process was drawn, photographed and filmed throughout. Meanwhile the site directors liaised with the police and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to ensure legal compliance.

The man had fallen face down, and we found the remains of his body and the full equipment he had been wearing as he went "over the top"; he was still holding his Lee-Enfield rifle. His bones were in good condition, though his left side ribs and humerus (upper arm) were missing, destroyed by the shell blast that killed him, and his skull had been damaged by ploughing.

The equipment showed that he was a British Imperial soldier. The Australian uniform tunic included brass "Australia" shoulder titles, one of which was found by his scapula, the other in his pocket. Brass badges, depicting the Rising Sun with imperial crown and the words "Australian Infantry Force", were worn on the collar, with his epaulette button having the standard map of Australia on it. These all proved Australian nationality.

Further work revealed his helmet, which should have been worn in action, beneath his left hip. Was it possible he had slung it on his pack, preferring to wear the iconic Australian slouch hat as a badge of unit identity? On the other hand, we also found the remains of a German Pickelhaube – spiked helmet – in his knapsack, perhaps a war trophy collected on a previous raid.

Once Australian nationality was confirmed, the group's historians began to see if it was possible to find out who he was. The 27th Battalion had been at this location in winter 1917–18, but this soldier had no winter-issue equipment with him. Otherwise only 33rd, 34th and 35th Australian Battalions, from 3rd Division, had been in that area during the first days of the Battle of Messines. The order of battle suggested that, due to his position in the field and because he was equipped for an assault, he was from C or D companies of 33rd Battalion. Careful scrutiny of the lists of men missing after the battle produced a number of potential identities for the body.

Osteological examination of the remains showed him to be between 35 and 40 years, and that he had lived a physical life; the casualty list included miners and farmers. Meanwhile, Leuven, Cranfield and Oxford universities cooperated to carry out isotope analysis, using traces of chemicals ingested during bone formation to identify his place of birth and early life. The results suggested that he was from the Sydney Basin or Hunter Valley in New South Wales. This ruled out a number of men, including several Britons and a Swede who had all enlisted in Australia but, taken with the age data, it reduced the number of candidates to five men! The Australian Army then traced possible descendants and commissioned DNA tests. This narrowed the skeleton down to that of a single man: private Alan James Mather of Inverell, New South Wales.

Private Mather was born in 1880 to Thomas Mather, the mayor of Inverell. His family was prosperous, and Alan went to the local grammar school before Hawkesbury Agricultural College to learn viticulture. His wine won a number of prizes before the family took a lease on a large area of grazing land which he managed until he enlisted. The 36-year-old joined up during a recruiting drive that formed his unit, known locally as "The Kurrajongs" after the tree that grows profusely in the area. His loss devastated the family who never knew for certain what happened to him; his 97-year-old niece still recalls her mother receiving the news. His loss has continued to affect the family, some of whom only recently visited the battlefields, seeing his name on the monument to the missing at the Menin Gate in Ieper. When asked how it felt to get the news of his identification, great-niece Kim Blomfield said it was very emotional – but "like winning the lottery".

Private Mather will now lie in the Prowse Point military cemetery in Belgium, beneath a headstone bearing his name. In time that name will be removed from the Menin Gate. His identification and the stories about him are the result of painstaking excavation, historical research and cutting-edge forensic science: but we can tell them because he came from a family that truly did remember.

Martin Brown and Richard Osgood work for the Ministry of Defence's Defence Estates as archaeological adviser and head of historic environment respectively. They are codirectors of the Plugstreet Project. See a related story Remembering Fromelles (feature, March/April).

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