Profiles

Rob Janaway in the Bradford Uni lab

Rob, whose official title is Lecturer in Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford, is a member of a team which made the news in 2008 after they made an unusual discovery on a former battlefield in Belgium - the body of a First World War Australian soldier in full battle kit buried where he fell in the German trenches. Now, it may come as a surprise to you that archaeologists are actually beavering away on the site of a battle which took place within the past 100 years - after all, aren't they supposed to be excavating fields where important events took place many centuries ago, Time Team-style? Not at all, says Rob. He says 'No Man's Land Archaeology' is casting a whole new light on what actually happened during The Great War: "We're looking at it with fresh eyes and moving away a little bit from the position taken by a lot of historians in the 1960s: that it was 'the lions led by donkeys', that they were all idiots, that it was a terrible slaughter. That's not undermining the horrible nature of the War, but looking at it with new eyes and with some new thinking." And if new thinking is what's needed then Rob's just the man. From excavating archaeological bodies from Roman times to 19th century crypts - as well as forensic work with the UK's police forces - he's certainly got plenty of experience examining the sort of 'finds' most of us might prefer not to think too much about.

Some of the team's battlefield 'finds'

The discovery of the body of the soldier in Belgium as part of the No Man's Land Archaeology project saw Bradford Uni's archaeologists working alongside a number of other British universities near St Yves in Wallonia - part of the area where the Battle of Messines took place in June 1917. In charge of examining the objects discovered on the battlefield, Rob got to see the reality of being a Great War soldier in close-up: "The young man was clearly in full battle order. He had all his kit on him. He had his rifle in his hand, his webbing with its pouches were containing what we'd expect them to contain, rounds of ammunition in what the Americans call 'clips', and he had his Lee-Enfield rifle in his hand...He had his water bottle with him, he had a basic medical kit with glass vials of iodine, wound dressings, that sort of thing."

In fact, says Rob, they discovered that the Australian soldier was carrying over 120 items on him when he was killed. And, with his job logging all the finds, it gave Rob a very personal view of the man they'd found: "There were two things that gave me a very close connection with this man, the sort of frisson moment that we all tend to get now and again. The first was when I realised that this piece of slightly decayed leather was part of a wallet and that it had coins in it. It was the point at which I opened it out to examine the contents, it was the feeling that the last person to handle these, very likely, was him...Unlike other parts of the kit, a wallet is something very personal. The other thing was when I was cleaning one of the copper collar tags, it had a small fragment of cloth from the uniform surviving behind it. I realised that there were short lengths of hair...Relatively recently before he went into action he'd had a haircut. It doesn't perhaps tell us very much, but again it was a very small, personal thing...We don't know why he got his hair cut. Maybe it was because he got shouted at by his Sergeant, it may be because he wanted to look right."

Surely, though, it must be difficult going through the belongings of a young man killed in the height of battle? Rob agrees it can be and says that when it comes to 'No Man's Land Archaeology', the circumstances under which these objects - and, of course, the bodies themselves - came to be there are never far from his team's minds. He says it's difficult not to be moved: "Graham [Arkley], who found the body, said one of the things that had affected him about it was that it was clearly the body of a young man. He realised that it was somebody of his own generation." And, adds Rob, everybody involved in projects like the one in Belgium has to show a great deal of sensitivity while they're getting on with the job: "We're conscious that there are people with relatives who are out on that battlefield somewhere. Usually at the end of each excavation we always make sure that there's time for a period of reflection about what the War was all about. That's part and parcel of what we do. It's slightly different from a 'normal' excavation - it's slightly more real in that respect. The archaeology's always about people, but if we're working in, say, the Medieval period then there's not quite that same level of personal connection to it."

In fact, Rob and the Bradford's University team's discoveries certainly go some way towards challenging that rather unflattering view of the First World War top brass. The question they were trying to answer was whether the training given specifically to the troops of the Australian 3rd Division was proving effective in the heat of battle, in other words were the army's high-ups 'getting it right' by 1917? Rob explains: "The Battle of Messines is one of the instances where it all starts to come together. It's a successful attack, the Australians take ground and hold the ground, the artillery barrage is coordinated...One of the research questions of this particular excavation is whether we've got evidence that training is put into practice - both from the physical evidence on the ground and in the documentary evidence. There's a hypothesis to be made that lessons are being learned from, say, the Somme, that those lessons are being put into training, and that training is being put into action. Is that training effective and is that why this is a successful attack? In that sense, archeology can contribute." Clearly, Rob feels that his and his team's work is helping our understanding of what really happened on Europe's Great War battlefields - even if it challenges what was once the accepted view.

Rob with a World War One penknife

Back home, sitting in the team's lab at Bradford University surrounded by the finds from the Belgian excavation, Rob Janaway is also happy to admit that he's glad to be able to put his skills to work on more pressing modern-day issues: "I work in forensic archaeology, which means I'm used as a specialist by UK police forces involved in the search for things of forensic interest - often bodies. But we may be used to look for other things which have been hidden or buried. I feel very strongly that there are some skills and attributes that the field of archaeology has that can be applied to the contemporary world. I'd feel uneasy if I spent the whole of my professional life just pursuing what are very interesting questions. Settlement and population in the Anglo Saxon period doesn't have that big an impact outside! It can provide some entertaining TV and books, it can provide intellectual fascination, but when it comes down to it...[laughs]"

In other words, many of the same techniques Rob uses to find out about life in Roman times or even death on Great War battlefields can also be applied to modern day crimes: "I personally have always been interested in being able to reconstruct processes and events that have happened based on the physical evidence. Those are the same skills, but with slightly different techniques, whether we're dealing with something that happened a few months ago as part of a crime scene, 90 years ago as part of a battlefield, or something that happened 1000 years ago...I've had a very interesting and fulfilling professional life working in archaeology. I first started excavating things as a schoolboy aged 12 and I've had immense excitement and fascination and a lifelong passion doing these things and I'm quite glad there's an opportunity to use some of the skills that have contemporary relevance!" So, for Bradford University's Rob Janaway, every day really does hold the potential for something different and a chance to put his skills to good use helping to understand the past as well as the present.

Finally, returning to the unidentified Australian soldier who lost his life during the Battle of Messines in June 1917 and whose body remained hidden until summer 2008, Rob says his journey will soon be coming to an end: "I think that most nationalities involved in the conflict have an interest in recognising the sacrifice of those soldiers...At least this soldier will be buried in a Commonwealth War Grave under an Australian headstone."