The best known example of military archaeology is conducted at historical battlefield sites, whether ancient or relatively modern. Here's a selection.
The turning point of the American Civil War was the bloodbath of Antietam. There were 23,000 casualties; and the impact of such a toll on the American president was to discard the concept of settling with the upstart southern states and create the Emancipation Proclamation. Number 3 on battle fields to visit? Antietam, Maryland.
April 16th, 1746; 3 miles southeast of Inverness, Scotland. The Jacobites, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, are finally defeated on the bloody battlefield, number 4 on our all-time greatest battlefields: Culloden.
The first intensive battlefield archaeology studies were conducted between 1985 and 1989, by Douglas Scott and Melissa Connor who investigated the dry hills of southeastern Montana for cartridge cases, bullets, army equipment, clothing fragments and skeletal remains: all that was left of George Armstrong Custer and his doomed 7th calvary.
The bloodiest battle ever fought in England was part of the War of the Roses, on Palm Sunday, in the year 1461, between the Yorkist King Edward IV, and the Duke of Somerset, fighting on the Lancaster side for Henry VI and Queen Margaret.
From the U.S. National Park Services, a discussion of battlefield archaeology.
The Southeast Archeological Center's website on the 1989-1990 excavations at the grim Civil War Prisoner-Of-War camp.
Archaeological investigations of this cavalry battle of the American Civil War in Ohio, from Heidelberg College.
In 1794, General "Mad" Anthony Wayne met and defeated the confederated tribes of Shawnee and Michikinikwa at the Fallen Timbers site in Ohio. Fallen Timbers has seen archaeological investigations recently; this site is from Heidelberg University.
The Zulu Wars is the group designation for a series of bloody battles during the 19th and early 20th century in South Africa. This site from the Zulu Kingdom provides history and a guide to the battle grounds.
The location of the infamous "Custer's Last Stand," the Little Big Horn Battlefield site in Montana was the first battlefield site ever intensively studied as an archaeological site.
The only Civil War battle site in Kansas, 1864, Mine Creek Battlefield site has been intensively studied with the use of metal-detecting and excavation. From the Kansas State Historical Society.
The DDay site is dedicated to information on the landing of the Allied forces on the Normandy beaches of France during World War II.
A website dedicated to the American Civil War battle fields of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
