Gebirgsjäger! Day one of excavating the large German transition camp in Hanko S. Finland

The fifth field season of the excavations of "Durchgangslager Hanko" kicked off today in beautiful summer weather. Some 11 participants in all what proved to be a very good number as we encountered a vast number of finds already in layer one.

The last find of excavation day one. A very well preserved "Gebirgsjäger Mützenabzeichen"!

The pace still got quite hectic at times with a wide variety of finds dropping in almost by the minute. Bottles, food ration cans, combs, gas mask lens covers, cigarette boxers (Juno, Orient and others..), leather and uniform cloth and of course the mandatory beer bottle caps etc..etc.

The 2019 excavation has just started.

Duing the last minute of the dig we fond a very well preserved Gebirgsjäger Mützenabzeichen and even though we have found one previously (in 2017) this one was in a way better state of preservation! What a wonderful small item and what a great start for 2019!!

Digging layer one of dumpsite one. Archaeology students Teemu Väsisänen and Fanny Fagerhom (right) supervised much of the excavation and kept control of things :)

Some German soldier had thrown limestone in the dump pit which apparently had helped preserve a lot of paper items.

Possibly a "Katyn massacre related German newspaper propaganda article".

The limestone apparently also added to the preservation of the etiquettes on the bottles. Finally we get an idea of what all these bottles once contained :)

 Finally etiquettes on the bottles!!

More tomorrow!