11–20 of 72 posts
It is interesting that stuff like this gets forgotten in such short time frame and requires investigation/ discovery.
It’s interesting to wonder, what common facts of today, will become mysteries for future historians.
I think "battlefield pick-over" is not a busted trope. Logistics means you use the stuff to hand, be it 155mm shells you captured taking a Russian trench system, or arrows left over from a stupid french knight charge over muddy ground towards english archers.
The point here, is that a vaguely disgusting re-use of the consequences of war, is that dead bodies turn out to be valuable, not just the grave goods around them. You want phosphates for fertilizer enough that digging up bones to burn to make it, is worthwhile. You would think that the slaughter of cattle and sheep provided enough but a few thousand buried soldiers is a pretty good deposit.
In times past soldiers piss has been used to make gunpowder, dung was used in leathermaking. What's the difference here to using urine, and digging up dead mans bones?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a definite "Yes" as far as UK archaeologists and historians have agreed for some time now. In a new book, an international team of historians and archaeologists argues the bones were depleted by industrial-scale grave robbing. The introduction of phosphates for fertilizer and bone char as an ingredient in beet sugar processing at the beginning of the 19th century transformed bones into a hot commodity. Skyrocket…
>an international team of historians and archaeologists argues ... They seem to agree it's "probably." Proof is hard.
Elsewhere:
Traffic in Human Bones— A ship from Hamburg arrived at Lossiemouth last week, laden with bones, the property of an agriculturalist of Morayshire, and intended for manure. The master of the vessel states that the bones were collected from the plains and marches of Leipsic (sic), and are part of the remains of the thousands who fell in the battles fought betwixt France and the Allies in October 1813
The bones being taken for use as fertilizer, for sugar from beet, the teeth "Waterloo Teeth" for false teeth for the living, etc were things that happened and were reported at the time . . .
There are academic papers on war fields where this is known to have happened and others where it is conjected to have occurred .. but proof of actual occurrence exists.
... in the modern era. It's a given that fabric and metals are high cost of production from raw inputs, and pre-mechanisation would be far too valuable to just leave in the fields. Post mechanisation the problem is logistics. (The factory war era pretty much begins with the Napoleonic war: Marc Brunel (Isembards father) made boot making machines and block making machines for the british war supply chain. You can see…
... in the modern era. It's a given that fabric and metals are high cost of production from raw inputs, and pre-mechanisation would be far too valuable to just leave in the fields. Post mechanisation the problem is logistics. (The factory war era pretty much begins with the Napoleonic war: Marc Brunel (Isembards father) made boot making machines and block making machines for the british war supply chain. You can see…
What’s a block making machine? Or a block for that matter?
If there's ever a plane crash I'm looking for cash and watches.
[0]https://www.climbing.com/people/yosemite-dope-airplane-crash...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the article discusses how it seems very probable there was mass grave robbing for sugar production. So the answer is "yes" or at least "probably."
For anyone confused how grave robbing would contribute to sugar production: "In a new book, an international team of historians and archaeologists argues the bones were depleted by industrial-scale grave robbing. The introduction of phosphates for fertilizer and bone char as an ingredient in beet sugar processing at the beginning of the 19th century transformed bones into a hot commodity. Skyrocketing prices prompted…
If there's ever a plane crash I'm looking for cash and watches.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/fl...
... in the modern era. It's a given that fabric and metals are high cost of production from raw inputs, and pre-mechanisation would be far too valuable to just leave in the fields. Post mechanisation the problem is logistics. (The factory war era pretty much begins with the Napoleonic war: Marc Brunel (Isembards father) made boot making machines and block making machines for the british war supply chain. You can see…
And surely yes, if I were local peasant near battlefield I would go and pick through it after everyone is gone. Or at latest when most of the stink is gone... Metals at least had value.