Description
Since the XNUMXs, the application of archaeological research methodologies to the remains of World War I has intensified significantly in Europe, in particular thanks to French preventive archeology. With a reflection that owes a lot to those experiences, this volume activates a broader look at the archeology of World War I, on its European scenarios, with particular attention to the different approaches that in Europe were reserved for the material testimonies of World War I to their individual and collective perception, starting from the end of this same conflict, until today.
The role that the European collective memory has always assigned to the events of the Great War has sparked a strong interest in the archeologically controlled discovery of some multiple burials of soldiers who fell in France; similarly also in Italy, in the Eastern Alps, where the glaciers at high altitudes, in extreme and inherently very conservative environments, have allowed the maintenance of organic materials, in particular the wood and the fabric of military uniforms, referable to the so-called White War , that is to war operations during the conflict between the Kingdom of Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The volume also represents a tool for reflection on how the recent, progressive maturation of the archaeological approach has widened the perspective from that of the only correct recovery of the remains of fallen in the places of the clashes to the study of real war landscapes, even with the use of remote sensing and Lidar maps of environmental transformations. The decisive and most interesting transition was marked by the transformation from an initial look of Battlefield Archeology (which in Europe is still in constant struggle with the phenomenon of illegal hunters of military relics) to that of a more mature Conflict Archeology, capable of thinking, in his research strategies, Landscapes of Conflicts and Warscapes.
The application of archaeological research to the knowledge of the prison camps of the First World War today is still to be considered completely pioneering, even if the Austro-Hungarian prison camps of the Great War in Italy were present on the entire national territory, including the islands , with about a hundred prison camps in the different regions of Italy. The Asinara and Casale di Altamura prison camps, which are discussed in this volume, represent the first Italian research on prison camps of the Great War, addressed with the tools of archaeological research.
In collaboration with SAMI, Società degli Archeologi Medievisti Italiani
