In 2016, a rescue excavation at the Jičín Natural Sciences Centre and Observatory uncovered a mass grave containing multiple commingled individuals buried in several layers. Zinc buttons and clothing remnants possibly related to eighteenth–nineteenth-century military uniforms found in the grave suggest that these individuals were soldiers. During this period, the Jičín region experienced numerous battles and was the location of several military barracks, hospitals, and transport routes, in addition to supporting civilian populations. To contextualize this burial site, bioarchaeological analyses including assessments of age-at-death, sex, and stature, and recording the presence of injury or medical intervention were conducted. A high frequency of young adult males suggests that the grave was related to military activity. The presence of infants, limited evidence of perimortem trauma, and absence of signs of medical treatment could indicate that this mass grave was related to military encampments rather than battlefield contexts.

Most recent archaeological studies of prisoners of war have concentrated on resistance to confinement and identity creation within the camps. In contrast, the findings at Les Blanches Banques, Jersey, occupied by German military prisoners during the First World War, are here viewed through the lens of the varied placemaking strategies applied by both prisoners and camp staff. The prisoners created places of meaning within the regimented and confined conditions of their internment, but the guards were also limited by their duties in their assignment to this remote location, though all also saw the camp within its wider island landscape setting. This is the first study to consider placemaking at a prisoner of war camp at nested scales and from different perspectives.

Although conflict archaeology is now well established, the archaeological remains of many specific military confrontations are still to be explored. This article reports the results of fieldwork to document the site of the Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944–25 January 1945). The authors use drone-mounted 1m-resolution LiDAR and very high-resolution simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) methods to reveal more than 940 features within the forested Ardennes landscape, many of which were subsequently visited and confirmed. As well as highlighting the potential of the LiDAR-SLAM method, deployed here (both in this geographic region and in conflict archaeology) for the first time, the survey results emphasise the need for a debate on managing the heritage of a key modern conflict landscape in Europe.

A Mongolian-German project is investigating abandoned early modern military and monastic sites in central Mongolia, including how the ruins of these urban nodes continue to shape cultural memory within nomadic society. Initial excavations have revealed a previously unknown site type, interpreted as garrisons from the period of Manchu rule (AD 1636–1911).

In recent decades, conflict archaeology has renewed study of the Roman Republican military, with Hispania as one of the most prolific areas of research. Following this trend, since 2006 the University of Barcelona has conducted archaeological investigations at several sites in the lower Ebro basin. When no structures or archaeological layers remained in situ, surface survey became a key methodology. Based on the artifacts retrieved during surface survey, this article identifies four new military establishments dated to the first half of the 1st c. BCE and reinterprets the campaigns of the Sertorian War in northeastern Spain.

While the Western Front of the Great (or First World) War is deeply engrained in the European historical consciousness, memories of the Eastern Front are less prominent. Here, events have been repressed, obscured by the subsequent experience of the Second World War and by heritage policy in the region. The authors present the results of archaeological investigations of a battlefield in central Poland, where static trench warfare was fought between December 1914 and July 1915. A unique landscape palimpsest was formed, the present neglected state of which is a material expression of contemporary attitudes to the legacy of the forgotten Eastern Front. The study illustrates the wider intersection of warfare, identity and memory.

Following the 1940 evacuation of the British Channel Island of Alderney, a network of Nazi labour and concentration camps was built on the island to house foreign labourers. Despite investigations led by the British Government immediately after the conclusion of the Second World War, knowledge of the history and architecture of these camps remained limited. This article reports on archaeological investigations, which, for the first time, have mapped the Sylt labour and concentration camp using non-invasive methods and 3D-reconstruction techniques. The results provide the opportunity, alongside historical research, to examine the relationships between architecture, the landscape setting and the experiences of those housed at Sylt camp.

Currently, mark-making practices as a form of identification and proof of life are an unrealized resource. Over a three-year period, systematic walkover surveys were conducted on and within fortifications and other structures on the island of Alderney to locate historic and modern marks. The investigations presented in this article demonstrate the importance of non-invasive recording and examination of marks to identify evidence connected to forced and slave labourers, and soldiers present on the island of Alderney during the German occupation in World War II. Names, hand and footwear impressions, slogans, artworks, dates, and counting mechanisms were recorded electronically and investigated by using international databases, archives, and translation services. We discuss the value and challenges of interpreting traces of human life in the contexts of conflict archaeology and missing person investigations and underline the need for greater recognition of marks as evidence of past lives.

As the centenary commemorations of the Battle of Passchendaele approach, this article is a timely demonstration of how archaeology can provide new insights into the landscape of the Western Front. Assessment of over 9000 aerial photographs taken during the First World War, integrated with other approaches to landscape archaeology, offers a new perspective on the shifting nature of the historic struggle around the town of Ypres in Belgium. The results not only illustrate the changing face of the landscape over that four-year period, but also highlight the potential of aerial photographic records to illuminate hitherto overlooked aspects of landscape heritage.

Archaeological and cultural heritage is always at risk of damage and destruction in areas of conflict. Despite legislation to protect sites and minimise the impact of war or civil unrest, much archaeological data is still being lost, not least in the Middle East. Careful research design and methodological recording strategies tailored to sites destroyed by conflict or looting can, however, provide much more information than previously imagined. This is illustrated by a case study focusing on the Roman settlement and temples at Hosn Niha in the Biqaʾ Valley, which were severely damaged in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War. Sufficient information was recovered to reconstruct many details, including the chronology and development of the site.

Concrete fortifications have long served as battle-scarred memorials of the Second World War. The forests of north-west Europe, meanwhile, have concealed a preserved landscape of earthwork field fortifications, military support structures and bomb- and shell-craters that promise to enhance our understanding of the conflict landscapes of the 1944 Normandy Campaign and the subsequent battles in the Ardennes and Hürtgenwald forests. Recent survey has revealed that the archaeology surviving in wooded landscapes can significantly enhance our understanding of ground combat in areas covered by forest. In particular, this evidence sheds new light on the logistical support of field armies and the impact of Allied bombing on German installations.

Archaeologists specialising in twentieth-century conflict here turn their attention from the trenches of Europe to the desert landscape of the Arabian theatre. The thrust and parry between the Ottoman Army and Lawrence's Arabian forces are reflected in defence-works and the outgoing and incoming bullets found there. The Ottoman generals changed their defences from long lines to redoubts, implying that the less visible guerrillas were having a palpable effect on strategy. Here, archaeology amplifies and enhances the story told in T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom.