Theme:
1. Networks, networking, communication: archaeology of interactions
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Signalling Intent: Beacons and Military Communications from Antiquity to Early Modern Times
Content:
This session explores the potentials of an archaeology of military communications. From antiquity to the present day, armed forces required systems of military communication: to coordinate troops in the field, warn of imminent threats, and signal between naval and terrestrial forces. A range of written, archaeological and toponymical evidence confirms the importance of beacons and lookouts to the networks of local and regional communications; systems with fire on mountain peaks are attested by Homer and similar systems were used all over Europe until the Napoleonic Wars. Recognising how and where such communications worked is fundamental to understanding systems of military organisation, defensive capabilities, and the nature of hostilities in the past – yet they have so far featured little in archaeological debates. This session will examine the problems and potentials of this topic. What is the archaeological signature of beacons, look-outs, and signalling systems? How can systems of visual and audible signals be reconstructed? What are the relationships between communications, landscape, and better-attested military installations, such as strongholds, linear defences, routes and landing places? How does an archaeology of military communications give insights into the social worlds of past people; how does the routinization of war and the threat of attack affect people and their institutions?
Contributions are sought from scholars working in archaeology, history, toponomy, landscape studies. We particularly welcome papers that discuss the physical evidence for military communications; the geographic extents of beacon and other signalling sites; papers that explore their links to mobilisation, movement, strategy, and other military sites and defense networks (e.g. hillforts, castles, place names indicating military personnel/places, earthworks, and power centres, etc); and the social dimensions of civil defence and its impacts on people.
Keywords:
beacons and military communications, defence networks, visual and audible signals, civil defence
Session associated with MERC:
yes
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Marie Ødegaard (Norway) 1
Co-organisers:
Stuart Brookes (United Kingdom) 2
Thorsten Lemm (Germany) 3
Frode Iversen (Norway) 4
Affiliations:
1. Museum of Archaeology, University of Stavanger
2. UCL Institute of Archaeology
3. Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen
4. Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo
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