Another amazing German WW2 dump site found!

After the very successfull excavation of the first dumpsite in the NE part of the German WW2 transition camp last week, I felt a little anxious that this weeks excavation might not match up with it. Not worried anymore :)

The carefully excavated 2nd level of dumpsite II when we left it today.

On the basis of todays finds tomorrow will be a very busy day at the excavation! The finds are so many that I´m also happy that we have 8 more days left of the excavation.

A selection of the approx 300 finds from today.

Tomorrow will probably be a  very busy day. At the moment we are approximately in the middle of the 2019 dig. I´m very thankful for my research assistants archaeology students BA Teemu Väisänen (University of Helsinki) and Fanny Fagerholm (Umeå Universitet).

Fanny (left) and Teemu (right)

And what a great excavation team again this week (including Mika :) )

Mika (left) and part of this weeks excavation team.

Back to the conflict archaeology of "Durchgangslager Hanko 1942-1944"

Today we started off with a new excavation area and a new excavation team. This week will be a tight knit group of 13 persons in all excavating the second German dump site of the Entlausungsdorf NE area.

BA Teemu Väisänen (right) supervising the participants of the second leg of the excavation. 

We encountered a wide variety of finds already in the topmost excavation layer. Although this dump at first seemed smaller than the one we excavated last week we might be in for a surprise.

Pictures of the many different small finds from excavation area two.

Usually an accumulation of this kind of many different types of finds in the topsoil indicates a "deep dump pit". Let´s see.

10 cm:s down.

The bottom layers of excavation area one that we excavated last week, produced interesting heavy timber structures, probably from a 1940-19412 Soviet machine gun nest. Thank God we have hard working guys on board that know how to swing a showel.

Mika and Teemu digging in.

Stash of hundreds of German documents from "Gebirgs-Jäger-Regiment 206" found in a ventilation shaft in Hanko harbour.

A stash of at least hundreds of German documents dating from April to June 1944 was found in a ventilation shaft by an electrician working in Hanko harbour. The documents are in very good condition despite beeing over 75 years old.

German Gebirgsjäger in Hanko harbour in 1944. Photo Jan Fast research collection.

The documents are now beeing cataloged and photographed. The extraordinary find will be published in a separate publication in 2020.

Almost all of the documents relate to "Gebirgs-Jäger-Regiment 206"

Link to the web article and a short video by SVENSKA.YLE.FI (in Swedish) 

https://svenska.yle.fi/artikel/2019/07/05/ett-mycket-betydande-fynd-krigstida-tyska-dokument-hittade-i-ventilationskanal-i?fbclid=IwAR0dsXdvoVEfWLgn_ZBLLfqFg_pApRbJkaje__M7sBHalzWvdJeiWSirS0s

A used German condom and a lot more :)

After a very windy day yesterday it was nice to have sunshine and warmth today. The first leg of the excavation is nearing it´s close and we are trying to make sure dumpsite I is completely excavated before Friday. Todays finds included several new find types including a used German condom, small packages of delousing powder, a book, beer bottles with etiquettes on them etc. etc.

A used German condom from the vicinity of the "Lotta Kantine Erika".

The amount of small finds of many, many different types is astounding. The finds come from every part of the excavation area.

 Many coins, Norwegian, Finnish and this German pfennig from 1942.

 A book.

 Small shaving mirror with an advertisemen on the back.

Bags of delousing powder "Läusepuder" (recommended by professor Morell)

The more common finds are german food ration cans. Archaeology student Fanny Fagerholm counted and measured each of them today and the total number exceeds 400 at the moment (from a 20 square meter area)!

At the end of the day we filled up 3/4 of the excavation area. A tough job but we did it :)

Day three of excavating the German WW2 transition camp in Hanko S. Finland

A very windy day here in Hanko but the many finds kept us warm.

A windy day on the beach.

We started off with documenting the excavation area which we have now dug to depth of ca 25 cm:s below ground surface. The dump layer contrasted quite nicely against the greyish undisturbed natural soil.

Dumpsite I with the two topmost layers removed.

Once again we encountered a multitude of different well preserved German WW2 finds! In the afternoon we extended excavation area I a bit to the south.

Spectacles, a watch stap, a chess piece, cigarillos and cigarette packages, Norwegian sardine cans and much much more :)

Tomorrow we will try to finish the excavation of this first dumpsite before the rain hits us on Friday. Thumbs up that we will succeed :)

Many more interesting German WW2 items from 1943 found!!

Today was the second day of the long awaited 5th field season of the excavation of the German transition camp. The good news is of course that we have struck a very interesting and undisturbed dump from 1943 (at least according to some of the "Lappland Kurier" pages we have found).

German newspaper fragments.

The finds illustrate a wide variety of the activities of German soldiers visiting the camp before taking the ships that carried them home to Germany or back to the "Nordfront. A beautiful flask with a leather cover was left behind by an unknown German soldier.

German flask.

It seems the German soldiers found a trench dug by Soviet forces during the occupation of Hanko 1940-1941 and filled it with trash from the nearby barracks area. The work is quite hard because of the many finds. It is also probable that the trench is quite deep so we expect a lot more finds during the following days.

Excavating and documenting layer one.

Below is a selection of the hundreds of different finds from the second day of the dig. The finds include many bottles and items related to personal hygiene as well as militay items like Mauser cartridges, Losatine gas contamination packages, cigarrette packages, coins and buttons...

French (left) and German button (made by Friedrich Linden Ludenshield).

Finds and more finds...

Tomorrow we will start excavating layer two of the German dump.

I <3 Hanko