From flint head spear to javelin missile
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2018-10-22

From a ‘Heritage At Risk perspective’, perhaps driving tanks over field systems, firing artillery at Roman villages and infantry digging around prehistoric landscapes may be at the upper echelons of curatorial horror. Protecting these landscapes is certainly a challenge yet damage is very rare. Putting large linear monuments entirely out of bounds becomes restrictive from a military training perspective – so how to include these in military scenarios whilst ensuring their protection? How does the Ministry of Defence minimise disturbance to archaeology and meet the requirements laid down in planning regulations and statute? Can heritage actually be a useful tool in the training of military personnel now that the Government has ratified The Hague Convention for protection of Cultural Property? Innovation is key and, focussing on the largest training area, Salisbury Plain, this paper sets out to illustrate how the team of professional archaeologists within the Ministry achieve it.

Richard Osgood, Defence Infrastructure Organisation