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1: INTRODUCTION carried out of the materiality of the Inner German Border and the Berlin Wall (Klausmeier and Schmidt 2004, Schmidt and von Preuschen 2005, Faversham and Schmidt 2007, Rottman 2008, Klausmeier 2009). Elsewhere, however, there is little research to inform us of what the militarised borders looked like, how they functioned, how they affected the people around them and how the borders, and the remains thereof, have continued to affect people also after the events of 1989. I have used Churchill’s description of an Iron Curtain stretching from the Baltic to the Adriatic to limit myself geographically but this is of course just a limitation I have set as a necessary approach to what would otherwise be too vast a material. I have also limited myself to the time period between 1945, the end of World War II and 1989, the fall of many of the military borders in central Europe. The reader should be aware, however, that the Iron Curtain can be described in many different ways both metaphorically and geographically and can be seen to stretch throughout the world and across different time periods. Studying the Iron Curtain Discussions of methodology have been an important part of the work of my thesis from beginning to end. During a very early consultation with my tutor, before I was about to embark on my first fieldwork, we discussed recording methods. When I suggested that I would require some sort of GPS to record the coordinates of any finds that I made out in the terrain my tutor asked me why I needed to be so precise, why not just mark them on a map The question threw me and I thought to myself: “but this is what we do”. We identify, we measure, we record, we describe and we report and it all needs to be exact so that we can demonstrate that it has all been carried out to good scientific standards. Otherwise it is just not good archaeology. Or is it In her doctoral thesis archaeologist Laura McAtackney (2008:8 and 16) discusses the role of traditional archaeological empirical methods such as excavation and building surveys as well as artefact recording and suggests that sometimes we carry out our investigations just because that is what we are supposed to do. But does it always bring something to our research In an article about the role of contemporary archaeology or an archaeology of the present and following discussion in ‘Surface assemblages: Towards an archaeology in and of the present’ archaeologist Rodney Harrison (2011) suggests that the connection between archaeology and excavation has become too accepted 17
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN and that we need to change our attitudes towards a stronger focus on archaeology through its surface assemblages. In a response to Harrison’s article archaeologist Paul Graves-Brown write: “Indeed, one might argue that the site and the digging thereof are what we have needed, subconsciously, to legitimate our practice” (Graves-Brown 2011:169). Harrison’s article can be seen as a way of rethinking the way we conduct archaeology and turn “interest towards an emerging present” (Harrison 2011:181). This shifts the emphasis of archaeology away from being a study of the past to be a study of the past in the present. A shift in perception of time is also present in the work of archaeologist Laurent Olivier who claims that we should view archaeology more in relation to memory as fragmented and constantly created and recreated instead of as fitting into a unilinear history writing (Olivier 2004:209–211). What happens when we apply these perspectives of time on the material that we study Methodologies for studies of contemporary archaeology sites are still somewhat experimental and unproven and as Harrison and archaeologist John Schofield (2010:88) write the productivity of the research techniques to be used in studies of a more recent material will only be demonstrated by further work. My research should therefore be seen as a part of this current discourse and a way to test and further the understanding of the study of sites from a contemporary past. I wanted to understand the materiality of the Iron Curtain and how this related to the popular idea of this iconic, Cold War divider between the East and West. The choice stood between concentrating on one site and studying several in order to compare. This comparison between sites along the former militarised borders throughout Europe offered the best possibility to understand the material and so I chose to include more than one case study in my research. Research into sites closer to our own time often provides a rich source material and it therefore becomes important to make decisions of how to approach what can be a vast assemblage of material evidence. Archaeologist Bjørnar Olsen, with his cry for a return to things within archaeology (2010, 2003), suggests that although materials are studied they are not seen as interesting in themselves but are always only used in order to reach something else: “The material is a source material, an incomplete representation of the past, traces of an absent presence – not part of the past (or society) itself” (Olsen 2003:90). It is by turning to the material and looking at the smaller pieces that we can begin to understand the bigger picture. Archaeologist Jonathan Westin writes: “…a single letter of [an] inscription is not accountable for the meaning of those words or sentences it helps form, political or religious as 18
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1: INTRODUCTION<br />
carried out of the materiality of the Inner German Border and the Berlin<br />
Wall (Klausmeier and Schmidt 2004, Schmidt and von Preuschen 2005,<br />
Faversham and Schmidt 2007, Rottman 2008, Klausmeier 2009). Elsewhere,<br />
however, there is little research to inform us of what the militarised borders<br />
looked like, how they functioned, how they affected the people around them<br />
and how the borders, and the remains thereof, have continued to affect<br />
people also after the events of 1989.<br />
I have used Churchill’s description of an Iron Curtain stretching from<br />
the Baltic to the Adriatic to limit myself geographically but this is of course<br />
just a limitation I have set as a necessary approach to what would otherwise<br />
be too vast a material. I have also limited myself to the time period between<br />
1945, the end of World War II and 1989, the fall of many of the military<br />
borders in central Europe. The reader should be aware, however, that the<br />
Iron Curtain can be described in many different ways both metaphorically<br />
and geographically and can be seen to stretch throughout the world and<br />
across different time periods.<br />
Studying the Iron Curtain<br />
Discussions of methodology have been an important part of the work of my<br />
thesis from beginning to end. During a very early consultation with my tutor,<br />
before I was about to embark on my first fieldwork, we discussed recording<br />
methods. When I suggested that I would require some sort of GPS to record<br />
the coordinates of any finds that I made out in the terrain my tutor asked me<br />
why I needed to be so precise, why not just mark them on a map The<br />
question threw me and I thought to myself: “but this is what we do”. We<br />
identify, we measure, we record, we describe and we report and it all needs to<br />
be exact so that we can demonstrate that it has all been carried out to good<br />
scientific standards. Otherwise it is just not good archaeology. Or is it In her<br />
doctoral thesis archaeologist Laura McAtackney (2008:8 and 16) discusses the<br />
role of traditional archaeological empirical methods such as excavation and<br />
building surveys as well as artefact recording and suggests that sometimes we<br />
carry out our investigations just because that is what we are supposed to do.<br />
But does it always bring something to our research In an article about the<br />
role of contemporary archaeology or an archaeology of the present and<br />
following discussion in ‘Surface assemblages: Towards an archaeology in and<br />
of the present’ archaeologist Rodney Harrison (2011) suggests that the<br />
connection between archaeology and excavation has become too accepted<br />
17
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