Tag: France

First modern humans in Europe hunted with bows and arrows, but Neanderthals did not

New evidence of archery among the very earliest people in Europe has been revealed.

Hundreds of small pointed stone sherds were discovered at a 54,000-year-old cave site in southern France.

A new video on this is now on the Hidden History Channel. Watch the video below.

Were vanished Battle of Waterloo soldiers’ bones sold as fertiliser?

Were the bones of fallen Battle of Waterloo soldiers sold as fertiliser?

As very few human remains have been found in the meat-grinder that was Waterloo, a new study posits a grim fate for those who fell in Napoleon’s last throw of the dice.

However, publishing his findings 207 years since the culmination of the Napoleonic Wars – in the peer-reviewed ‘Journal of Conflict Archaeology’, Professor Tony Pollard said it wasn’t quite “case closed”.

The Director of the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology at the University of Glasgow revealed newly-discovered battlefield descriptions and drawings made by people who visited in the days and weeks following the pivotal battle.

These included letters and personal memoirs from a Scottish merchant living in Brussels at the time, James Ker, who visited in the days following the battle and described men dying in his arms.

Together the visitor accounts describe the exact locations of three mass graves containing up to 13,000 bodies.

But will this new data lead to the discovery of a mass grave?

Well, no, according to Professor Pollard.

The academic said: “Artistic licence and hyperbole over the number of bodies in mass graves notwithstanding, the bodies of the dead were clearly disposed of at numerous locations across the battlefield, so it is somewhat surprising that there is no reliable record of a mass grave ever being encountered.

“At least three newspaper articles from the 1820s onwards reference the importing of human bones from European battlefields for the purpose of producing fertiliser.

“European battlefields may have provided a convenient source of bone that could be ground down into bone-meal, an effective form of fertiliser. One of the main markets for this raw material was the British Isles.”

He added: “Waterloo attracted visitors almost as soon as the gun-smoke cleared.

“Many came to steal the belongings of the dead, some even stole teeth to make into dentures, while others came to simply observe what had happened.

“It’s likely that an agent of a purveyor of bones would arrive at the battlefield with high expectations of securing their prize.

“Primary targets would be mass graves, as they would have enough bodies in them to merit the effort of digging the bones.

“Local people would have been able to point these agents to the locations of the mass graves, as many of them would have vivid memories of the burials taking place, or may even have helped with the digging.

“It’s also possible that the various guidebooks and travelogues that described the nature and location of the graves could have served essentially as treasure maps complete with an X to mark the spot.

“On the basis of these accounts, backed up by the well attested importance of bone meal in the practice of agriculture, the emptying of mass graves at Waterloo in order to obtain bones seems feasible, and the likely conclusion is that.”

But, to determine once and for all, as part of his role as the Lead Academic and an Archaeological Director at the charity Waterloo Uncovered, Professor Pollard will help lead an “ambitious”, several years-long geophysical survey.

“The next stage is to head back out to Waterloo, to attempt to plot grave sites resulting from the analysis of early visitor accounts reported here,” said Professor Pollard.

He added: “If human remains have been removed on the scale proposed then there should be, at least in some cases, archaeological evidence of the pits from which they were taken, however truncated and poorly defined these might be.

“Covering large areas of the battlefield over the coming years, we will look to identify areas of previous ground disturbance to test the results of the source review and distribution map and, in conjunction with further documentary research and some excavation, will provide a much more definitive picture of the fate of the dead of Waterloo.”

But the chances of the team finding anything are slim, with body discoveries rare.

Perhaps the battlefield ghouls have beaten them to it.

As to the finds that have been made:

In 2015 a human skeleton was uncovered during the building of a new museum and carpark at the site.

Then, in 2019, amputated human leg bones were unearthed by the Waterloo Uncovered team in an excavation of the main allied field hospital.

There was also a skeleton of uncertain provenance in the museum in Waterloo.

But no other significant remains have been found.

Dunkirk: following in my grandfather’s WW2 footsteps

I had the opportunity to visit Dunkirk recently, where my grandfather was evacuated between 26 May and 4 June 1940.

As we arrived in the slightly run-down town, I thought it was very similar to British seaside resorts – a sense of faded glory, but otherwise a pleasant enough place.

At this point I hadn’t seen the beach, that has always been known in Britain, but has gained further fame thanks to Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film ‘Dunkirk’.

Because of Nolan’s signature colour palette I had expected a solemn and reverential sight to greet me when I finally laid eyes on the sand.

But I was struck by a few things.

Firstly how huge it was – it took a full five to ten minutes to walk from the well-maintained promenade to the water’s edge.

Secondly, I couldn’t help thinking how lovely it was. I think this realisation made the knowledge of what happened there all the more poignant. It was as if it never happened.

This is undoubtedly a good thing since it shows that the scars of war can and do heal given enough time.

But, as people played volleyball, swam in the pleasantly warm sea, or lounged on the fine yellow sand, I couldn’t help but think about the absolute terror, sacrifice and bravery that this beach was a witness of.

I’ve not heard much about my grandfather’s experience, aside from how he was unable to swim, but had to wade out into shoulder-deep water to wait to be rescued and taken across the Channel to England.

That is a fairly perfunctory way to describe what must have been absolute terror, confusion and carnage.

Another story I heard, albeit secondhand, was that he saw one of his comrades killed horribly. I won’t go into the details.

His name was Frank Russel, of Stamford, in Lincolnshire and he died when I was very young, so I had no opportunity to ask him about it. Although, I’m not sure I would’ve done anyway, as I know many of the wartime generation did not really talk about what they went through.

Many of the features on the beach are still there – including the east mole that featured in the Dunkirk film and was used to help load up servicemen onto ships, before the famous and incredible ‘little ships’ arrived to lend a further hand.

The bravery of those who took pleasure craft and even rowing boats into a scene of active warfare and slaughter to rescue those mostly young men is staggering.

Special mention and eternal gratitude must also go to the utterly heroic French, British and Belgian soldiers who fought a rearguard action to hold off the advancing German forces.

But the men on the beach had it far from easy, with the constant threat of death from strafing runs by the Luftwaffe’s Stuka dive-bombers.

Even the German pilots grew tired of effectively shooting fish in a barrel.

The Luftwaffe’s Captain Paul Temme was quoted as saying the raids were “just unadulterated killing. The beaches were jammed full of soldiers. I went up and down ‘hose-piping.’ It was cold-blooded point-blank murder”.

The bombardment would have been far worse but for sustained and determined action by RAF fighters, which were largely out over the Channel and unseen by the stricken soldiers awaiting rescue.

The decision not to engage more British Spitfires and Hurricanes in the rescue mission proved to be a wise one however, as these planes were still available for the crucial Battle of Britain later in the year.

The demoralised soldiers had been chased across Europe, suffering defeat after defeat as the full scale of hyper-modern mechanised warfare and Blitzkrieg tactics were unleashed on them, cutting a scythe through Belgium and France.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the failure of the British Expeditionary Force “a colossal military disaster”.

All their equipment was left in the scramble to the sea, including tanks, vehicles and other kit.

But the ‘miracle of Dunkirk’ ended up being a saving grace that allowed Britain to continue fighting.

A staggering 338,000 men were evacuated. Enough to avoid being knocked out of the war altogether and affording the possibility of regrouping.

On 4 June 1940, Churchill addressed the House of Commons and concluded his speech with the words: “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

Unfortunately my visit was not a long one, but it is one that will live with me forever.

Quite simply, without the miracle of Dunkirk I would not be here at all.

Vampire pigs on trial in medieval France

France is a country renowned for its gastronomy so you’d think its relationship with livestock would be a fairly harmonious one.

But this is Joigny in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comte region of northern France, a smallish town that was once so terrified of pigs that it instituted an official ordinance governing who could – or rather could not – sell the animals for the table.

In 1415 the commune was so ravaged by leprosy that it banned the sale of pigs by barbers.

This may lead to confusion in modern ears. Why would hairstylists be proscribed from selling pigs?

This is because barbers – or barber surgeons – actually performed gruesome operations like amputations.

As an aside this explains the iconic barber’s cane displayed outside tradition hairstylist’s shops, which actually represents bloody bandages wrapped around a limb.

So, the 1415 ordinance was introduced to stop barbers selling pigs as it was feared the animals may have licked up human blood that spilled from the surgeons’ operating tables.

As well as the concerns over spreading leprosy, pigs were seen to run amok in towns and cities all over France in the Middle Ages.

A 2015 paper, called ‘Human and Animal in Medieval France (12th–15th c.)’, by Irène Fabry-Tehranchi and Anna Russakoff, tells of wandering pigs in 1408 eating a butcher’s supply of suet, and others clambering up to the second story to devour a pot of boiling meat.

There is also an account of another pig which, in 1461, swam across the Seine in an unsuccessful attempt to evade being eaten.

And, staggeringly, pigs were accused of committing crimes and were actually put on trial, jailed and executed.

In what must have been farcical proceedings, they were even granted legal counsel to represent them in the hearings.

A pig was said to have been executed in 1266 in Fontenay-aux-Roses in the earliest record of an animal trial.

The trials remained part of several legal systems until the 18th century.

In 1386, a pig was allegedly executed in the French city of Falaise for chewing off the limbs and face of a three-year-old in its cradle.

The crime and punishment were said to have been depicted in a fresco on the wall of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Falaise, but has since been whitewashed.

Geoffrey Chaucer, in ‘The Knight’s Tale’, continued the trope and described a scene of horror at a temple dedicated to Mars.

The walls of the temple feature a mural showing all manner of debauchery and sin under the influence of the Roman war god.

A modern English translation reads: “A thousand people killed, and not died because of the Plague.

“The tyrant, with the prey taken by force

“The town destroyed, not one thing was left

“Yet I saw that ships burned, dancing (on the stormy sea)

“The hunter strangled by wild bears

“The sow eating a child right from the cradle

“The cook struck down, even though he had a big spoon.”

Leaving aside the fact that pigs are, in and of themselves, powerful animals and voracious eaters, their undomesticated cousins, the wild boar, were rightly feared and capable of goring a man to death with their sizeable tusks.

This ferocious reputation was well known for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and is present in heraldry and other symbolism across Europe.

This includes representation on the iconic Sutton Hoo helmet, from Anglo-Saxon England, upon which the eyebrows have gilt zoomorphic terminals consisting of boar heads.

So it wasn’t just the French who held that these animals could pose a threat or be an object of shock and awe to humans.