Another talk by Seren from earlier this year. Gold fob seals, Sheffield silver, Mesolithic stone tools - these were some of the discoveries detailed in the 28 papers, books and pamphlets published by a soldier turned archaeologist who began looking at what you might find in the soil in the middle of a World War I battlefield. In her Essay, Seren Griffiths traces the way Francis Buckley used his training for military intelligence to shape the way he set about digging up and recording objects buried both in war-torn landscapes of France and then on the Yorkshire moors around his home.
Listen at
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vgvb
or http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09fsczr
and see the related paper by Seren Griffiths & Nicholas J. Saunders
Forged in Conflict: Francis Buckley, the First World War, and British Prehistory
International Journal of Historical Archaeology volume 25, pages 469–485 (2021)
Francis Buckley was extraordinary; an officer responsible for arming grenades, excavating trenches, surveying, sketch-mapping, and military intelligence, his actions were a roll-call of the First World War’s bloodiest battles. The psychological toll was significant. War remade the man and created the archaeologist. Under fire, Buckley recorded prehistoric lithics on the Somme, a rich archaeological landscape, and a deadly battlefield. After the war, “tramping” the Yorkshire moors, Buckley applied military skills to excavate and record a key, but still understudied lithic collection. This paper explores Francis Buckley’s war, its implications for the history of archaeological thought, and reasserts his under-acknowledged legacy.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10761-020-00572-6
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-020-00572-6
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