The Archaeology of World War I in Comines-Warneton (Belgium) through Aerial Photographs and Proximal Soil Sensing

The Western Front of World War I is one of the largest continuous archaeological sites in the world. Although fragmented archaeological surveys and inventories of related conflict heritage have been conducted, an overall landscape-scale archaeological investigation of the area has not yet been achieved. The nature and extent of the buried heritage is largely unknown. This is in spite of an increase of World War I-related excavations in Flanders during the last decade. Therefore, we have developed an integrated aerial archaeological and GIS-aided approach to assess this war heritage, and combined it with landscape research and geophysical prospection. Preliminary results suggest an excellent subsurface preservation of the conflict landscape, even after the devastating effect of the war itself and a century of reconstruction and land use. A case study at Comines-Warneton compares data derived from contemporary World War I aerial photographs with recent multi-receiver electromagnetic induction surveys. In addition, as most research traditionally has been devoted to the study of the trench systems, this chapter will focus on some of the less-studied, but equally important, aspects of the conflict landscape. These are sites such as war cemeteries, hospital sites and gun emplacements. This methodology will form the foundation for a wider study of the entire Belgian front zone – the interdisciplinary research project ‘Non- Invasive Landscape Archaeology of the Great War in Belgium’. This will combine analysis of historical aerial photographic evidence, geophysical soil sensing and historic and visual landscape analysis.