Conflict Archaeology in the Netherlands: The Role of Communities in an Emerging Archaeological Discipline

Abstract

While we were preparing another paper, we were surprised not to find an existing peer-reviewed overview of the Dutch development of conflict archaeology. Though a vast number of publications, theoretical debates and conferences on this topic does exist, nothing has appeared in academic journals. We argue that Dutch archaeology of modern conflict is primarily a community-driven development and that this is the cause for the current gap. To set the record straight we provide a review of this development up to 2015 and we argue that conflict archaeology might be the best example of community archaeology in the Netherlands yet because it started with the public. To illustrate how the results of conflict archaeology in archaeological heritage management can have an impact on local, national and army communities, we discuss the case of the 1940 battlefield ‘Grebbeberg Mount’.