Modern archeology

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The Modern Archeology deals as a archaeological discipline with the material legacy of the modern age . It begins around the 16th century and extends into recent history - for example through investigations in concentration camps or on the former inner-German border .

description

Methodologically, the archeology of the modern age is closely linked to the medieval archeology . This increasingly expands its research activities into modern times up to the 20th century. In view of the increasing availability of written sources, modern archeology has so far hardly been accepted in Germany. This field is still in its infancy in Germany, but there have already been a few excavations. The objects of investigation include battlefields from the First and Second World Wars , sites from the time of National Socialism or sites from the Cold War .

Another field of modern archeology is industrial archeology, which in modern times is more derived from the history of technology than from archaeological research.

A special field of modern archeology is the archeology of the present, which deals with the legacies of the recent past from the last decades. According to a survey conducted in 2014 at the state offices for the preservation of monuments in Germany, there were no projects on contemporary archeology at the time.

Contemporary archeology is often carried out by other monument preservation institutions. Examples are archaeological investigations on the Berlin Wall , in the ruins of a Californian hippie villa from the Summer of Love , at a peace camp run by women at the British military airport Greenham Common for years and on the grounds of the Woodstock Festival in 1969.

In Lower Saxony was in 2014 with the gold treasure of edema , a hoard of Lüneburg discovered and archaeologically investigated, in the confusion at the end of World War II or in the immediate post-war period has been laid down.

From 2016 to 2018, the University of Hamburg carried out the archaeological investigation of the "Republic of Free Wendland", scientific research on the former protest village of the " Republic of Free Wendland " near Gorleben , which existed for four weeks in 1980. This is the first project of contemporary archeology on everyday culture in the late 20th century in German-speaking countries .

See also

literature

  • Stefan Fassbinder : pilgrimage, devotion and magic. Religious followers and medals - contributions to the modern history of piety in southwest Germany from an archaeological point of view. (= Journal for Archeology of the Middle Ages. Supplement 18), Bonn 2003, Chapter 18.
  • Günter P. Fehring : The archeology of the Middle Ages: An introduction . 3rd, improved and updated edition (Darmstadt, Stuttgart 2000).
  • Barbara Scholkmann : Archeology of the Middle Ages and Modern Times Today. A position assessment in an interdisciplinary context. Magazine Arch. Mittelalter 25/26, 1997/98, pp. 7-18.
  • Rainer Schreg : Archeology of the early modern period. The contribution of archeology in the face of increasing written sources. Mitt. DGAMN 18, 2007, pp. 9-20.
  • Ulrich Linse : The discovery of technical monuments. About the beginnings of “industrial archeology” in Germany. History of technology 53, 1986, pp. 201-222.
  • Ulrich Linse: The rediscovered memory. On the archeology of contemporary history. In: History in Science and Education. 1988, pp. 427-430.
  • Gerson H. Jeute: What Comes After 20th Century Archeology? Considerations and examples of contemporary archeology. ( Online )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Esther Widmann: Contemporary archeology. Why sex pistols doodles occupy researchers in Süddeutsche Zeitung from July 15, 2017
  2. ↑ The Berlin Wall
  3. ↑ Angelika Franz: What was left of the hippie commune in Spiegel Online from March 10, 2009
  4. ↑ Archaeologists are looking for the Woodstock stage on ZDF today, June 27, 2018
  5. ↑ Archaeologists excavate the area of ​​the Woodstock Festival in the USA at Deutsche Welle on June 27, 2018
  6. ↑ Carolin George: What was left of the "Republic Free Wendland" in the world of November 6, 2016
  7. ↑ Digging for the remains of the Free Republic of Wendland at wendland.net from December 5, 2016