Editorial

Abstract

Conflict Archaeology is a very broad church, as will be apparent from a review of the thirteen volumes of this Journal. This issue is an excellent example as the topics varywidely. They also demonstrate that not everyone involved in Conflict Archaeology is necessarily a conflict archaeologist. This issue is the result of work involving archaeologists, landscape architects, forensic scientists, dendrochronologists andmedical doctors. The results are rich and underline the intradisciplinary nature of the work. Clearly, Conflict Archaeology is not the only archaeological area that benefits from the input of other disciplines, but the study of war and conflict requires a very broad range of expertise. However, while Conflict Archaeology is a broad church, it is sometimes difficult to escape the influence of battlefields, not least because they bring a drama and sense of storytelling that is difficult to rival. When this is tied to an element of mythbusting, where archaeological evidence is used to clarify, correct, or reveal the events of a battle, it is a very powerful way to investigate the past. Certainly, there is rarely much difficulty in convincing the public that research on battlefields is important; that is sadly not always the case when it comes to preservation. Strangely, there are still archaeologists who remain unconvinced that battlefields are either important or capable of being investigated by archaeological methodologies. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but that becomes problematic when that opinion is offered as an expert opinion in planning cases. Where that expert opinion is uninformed by any involvement in fieldwork on battlefields, it becomes a real issue; the problem is that the legal system tends to view all archaeology as the same thing when it is quite clear that different areas of archaeology need different forms of expertise. The fact is that battlefield archaeology has been proven repeatedly in the field, where artefact distributions clearly represent human activity; the distributions do appear meaningful and are consistent from ploughed areas to unploughed areas. It remains to be seen whether modern ploughing techniques will change that situation, but currently the fact is that there is an extensive literature that demonstrates the events of a battle are recoverable through the distribution of material across the battlefield during the fighting. Battlefields across the world remain under threat and continue to be impacted by modern development. When the battlefield is thoroughly investigated archaeologically, as at the battle of Lützen from 1632, the quality of information collected offsets the loss of the resource (Schürger 2015). Unfortunately, the situation at Halle in terms of the cultural resource management is rarely repeated; here, a developer was required to pay the full costs of a complete investigation. It is far less benign in the main. The battlefield of Pinkie Cleugh from 1547, the last major Anglo-Scottish battle and a key site in the development of combined arms operations, is on the Historic Environment Scotland Inventory of Scottish Battlefields. Its inclusion recognises the national importance of the battle and makes it a material concern in the planning process. However, being on the JOURNAL OF CONFLICT ARCHAEOLOGY 2018, VOL. 13, NO. 2, 77–79 https://doi.org/10.1080/15740773.2018.1582995