WWII archaeology pics

I thought this crowed would appreciate this.

I just got back from several weeks of work at Kwajalein Atoll doing some archaeological monitoring. Unfortunately the workers hit a multiple Japanese burial in the first hole that I monitored. Here are some selected pics from the salvage recovery of this battlefield burial. Most of the pics have captions to give explanations of what is going on.

I posted some photos of a 1903A3 that I found in the collection at US Army Kwajalein Atoll earlier this month.

http://travel.webshots.com/album/572282842mQnHlX

Very interesting, Mark! You've really got (at least, my idea of...) the perfect job! :)

Absence of gear, jumbled state of bones seems to indicate they were stripped, piled in a hole and bulldozed over... is that your assessment on this one?

There were Japanese artifact with the bones, coins, buttons one round of 7.7mm ect. No weapons or filed gear in the section we excavated which was only about 4x5 feet. There were other remains beyond this area that may have held more artifacts. I think these guys were KIA in thier foxhole/fighting position, left as they fell and just covered over. Other parts of the island did have mass burials involving bulldozers. There are still 3,500+ Japanese on the island in various spots.

I am so jealous, I wanted to be an archaeologist before i could even say it correctly. it was one of those roads not taken:crying: it started at dinosaurs and then went into military battle sites

i'll live my life through you:super:

have fun on your next dig:beerchug:

Kwajalein Control Facility - Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands

Mark,

Thanks for an insight into your interesting work.

Great slide show.

DW

Goo. thanks for the connection to the Kwaj story. I was on Kwaj a number of times in 1955 and 1956 flying weather B-29s out of Guam.

Bill Hughes