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6: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
the smaller components, however mundane, that we can gain a better
understanding of the bigger picture.
The mundane war
In his review of Andreassen, Bjerck and Olsen (2010) archaeologist John
Schofield writes about the importance of the mundane within the pictures
they display in the book. He writes: “… it is not views and sight-lines that
matter so much as the mundane, the everyday details of the place – objects,
surfaces and their sometimes odd juxtaposition” (Schofield 2012:133). The
most common find at excavations of sites from any period are those of the
mundane, the everyday and even the banal. We find broken pots, ceramics,
stone axes, glass bottles, clay pipes, all finds that have been part of everyday,
mundane activities. The finds from a time closer to our own have a habit of
finding their way under our skin, more so than those of older periods,
partly because they fit easier into our own understanding. They remind us
of the things we have around us in our own mundane lives. As there are
more sources remaining it can be easier to follow the different leads and
understand the relationship between different parts.
When we think about remains of the Cold War we often refer to large
military installations or sites connected with the nuclear arms race. This is
clear also in most of the sites related to the Cold War that have so far been
studied by archaeologists which have consisted of sites noted for their
monumentality and significance in relation to the Cold War narratives we
are so familiar with (for example Cocroft 2003, Schofield and Cocroft 2007,
Burström et al. 2011). This is also true for my own research. There are few
symbols or monuments cited as often within historical narratives of the
Cold War as the Iron Curtain and as many others I started with a view of
the monumental and what seemed most significant. My previous historical
knowledge also informed me in my choice of study areas and what materials
to approach during the early stages of my research. But what has
become very clear during my fieldwork is that the sites and the objects that
stand out the most are the leftovers of the mundane. The majority of the
sites linked in some way to the Cold War are often smaller sites, places seen
less important to the world in general but in fact probably more significant
than they have been credited for. These are the sites that make up the
intrinsic network of actions, people, objects that created the solidness of the
Cold War. What I have always found so interesting about the Cold War is
exactly this, that it is not only about the large military installations or the
sites that had the worlds eyes focused on them during much of the second
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