Bulletin 34 - New GWAG project - Investigating Auxiliary Units

We are hoping to launch a new project at a meeting in Bristol on 23 February. It will take an archaeological and anthropological approach to investigating the Auxiliary Units, which were set up in 1940 with the intention of creating guerrilla resistance/sabotage cells that would become active behind German lines in the event of an invasion. The British Government created a network of small, secret, elite Home Guard units and a network of underground bunkers, signal-stations, and store-bases.

 

These remains represent a 'virtual' guerrilla war - a planned guerrilla war that never happened. They offer an opportunity to study an entire guerrilla-war landscape at macro-level, while using individual sites and artefact assemblages to explore how the war would have been waged and experienced by individual participants at micro-level.

 

We have excellent preliminary contacts with people heavily involved in recording these remains for the Defence of Britain Project surveys in the 1990s, and our planned initial study area will be Somerset and perhaps Monmouthshire. However, there is great potential for establishing local projects elsewhere. All those interested in becoming involved are welcome to attend the preliminary meeting:

 

5.00pm, Tuesday 23 February

Department of Archaeology and Anthropology

University of Bristol

43 Woodland Road

Clifton

Bristol

Angie Hibbitt

Bulletin 33 - Lawrence Conference

Current World Archaeology/Great Arab Revolt Project

one-day conference

Lawrence, the Arabs, and the genesis of modern guerrilla warfare

Saturday 15 May 2010

Clore Management Centre

Birkbeck University of London

Bloomsbury

On the 75^th anniversary of T E Lawrence’s death, three leading academic specialists assess his role in the desert war of 1916-1918 and his relevance in understanding the conflicts of the last 90 years. Neil Faulkner and Nick Saunders are joint directors of a pioneering new field project that is investigating the archaeological remains of the conflict along the line of the former Hijaz Railway. Jeremy Wilson, author of Lawrence of Arabia: the authorised biography of T E Lawrence, is widely recognised as the world’s leading authority on his subject. Together, on the basis of radically new evidence and interpretation, they offer a day of illustrated talks and discussion that will reassess Lawrence, his role, and his legacy. And they will draw some stark lessons: about the parallels between the failure of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and unfolding disaster of the ‘war on terror’ today.

Programme

9.30-10.00:       registration (tea and coffee available)

10.00-10.15:     introduction to the day

10.15-11.30:     Jeremy Wilson: A legend on record?
                        Researching the archive of Lawrence’s war

11.30-11.45:     short break

11.45-1.00:       Nick Saunders: Fire on the desert:
                        conflict archaeology of the Great Arab Revolt

1.00-2.15:         lunch (not included)

2.15-3.30:         Neil Faulkner: Lawrence: seminal theorist of modern guerrilla warfare

3.30-4.00:         tea and coffee

4.00-4.30:         Images from Lawrence of Arabia’s war

4.30-5.30:         Plenary

The price of the conference for early bookings is £29 (before 31 March). Standard booking price (after 31 March) is £39. Payment can be by cheque in the post (payable to Current Publishing) or credit/debit card over the phone: Current Publishing, Lamb House, Church Street, London, W4 2PD, 08456 447707 or 0208 819 5580.

(Note - previous GARP team members, i.e. those who have been part of any of the fieldwork seasons in Jordan, are entitled to a discount. Please contact Angie Hibbitt (angie@gwag.org) for information and to register)