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The skies of spain were filled wiTh wings.

Methodologies for the archaeological investigation of republican airfields (1936-1939)


M. Carmen Rojo Ariza Didctica del Patrimoni, Museologia Comprensiva i Noves Tecnologies (DIDPATRI), Departament de Didctica de les Cincies Socials, Universitat de Barcelona (maycarojoar@ub.edu)

introduction The aim of this poster is to present the methodological and theoretical framework developed to study a set of four airfields located in the Penedes region, between El Vendrell and Vilafranca del Peneds, in Catalonia well-known as the Wasps Nest of the Glorious- and associated with the Republican Government (1931-1936/1939). These aerodromes allocated a number of Polikarpov I-15 Chato and Polikarpov I-16 Mosca soviet fighter aircrafts. A metal detector survey was undertaken in these areas as well as combined (GPR and gradiometer) geophysical prospection. In order to integrate all this data, we have used Libre Office suite for the designing of a database which could allow us to carry out spatial analysis and a better understanding and comprehension by using GIS technologies.

historical bacKground For most scholars, the Spanish Civil War represents the beginning of modern warfare. Moreover, in terms of strategies and tactics, it is also seen as a precursory event to the Second World War. For example with regard to aviation, even though there was no variety of military aircraft at the moment of the military coup, the international intervention allowed the arrival of plenty of aircraft and, for this reason, Spain became the ideal testing scenario for new methods of war. In this sense, it was evident that aerial war and aerial attacks would be a key point in the development of the conflict. Moreover, almost 350 aerodromes were built in Spain; specifically 80 of those were located in the 3rd Air Region (Catalonia and Aragon). The effort of constructing this net of infrastructures linked to aviation help to understand the increasing importance of Air Warfare.

figure 1. aerial photography of santa Margarida i els Monjos airfield takenby an italian bomber.

the MaterialitY of republican aviation In spite of its supposed intangibility, the archaeology of republican aviation could explore archaeologically different aspects of military organisation of these spaces. Airfields, and other elements linked to aviation, are not conventional battlefields, but conflict zones in the rearguard, in other words, places that form the Home Front. From historical and anthropological points of view, these airfields and the buildings related to aviation make it possible to explore the relationship between military landscape and military/civilian people.

MethodologY In order to comprehend the set of airfields within our case study, we designed a database and classified all the metallic objects found in the four sites. We also created three categories for all the objects what would help us to perform spatial analysis of each aerodrome and infer patterns of some parts of each airfield: shoot cartridge cases as evidence of where the machine guns of republican aircrafts were tested; duraluminium sheets would show possible places of mechanics work; finally, pieces of shrapnel shells are remains of the fascist bombings. The analysis of the distribution of these objects in each aerodrome will be the following step to carry out in this project. At the same time, the value of aspect, slope, gradient and height for each of them was calculate to achieve the geographic characteristics of them which resulted to be highly similar, especially in regard to orientation (S-SW) and degree of terrain inclination.
figure 2. air-raid shelter from santa Margarida i els Monjos which would define the borders of the airfield located here.

conclusions This poster shows the first step of a thesis project. In this phase, all the efforts were centered on designing the spatial database because of its future utility as a technique for spatial analysis and geostatistics. Furthermore, due to the lack of catalogues of material culture of Spanish Civil War, it was also used to interview mechanics who worked in the thirties and forties in order to contextualise some of the objects found.

acKnoWledgMents We would like to express our gratitude to the Estaci Territorial de Recerca Peneds-Les Forces Aries de la Repblica Espanyola (ETRP-FARE), especially the researchers Drs. Ramon Arnabat Mata and David Iiguez Gracia for providing us the historical sources we required to develop this project. We are grateful to Emma Darnton for her corrections of an earlier version of this text. Finally, this project is funded by a Spanish Ministry of Education FPU Predoctoral Fellowship and it also forms part of a public funded project of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, entitled MUSEOGRAFA DIDCTICA E INTERPRETACIN DE ESPACIOS ARQUEOLGICOS. Reference: EDU2008-00427/EDUC.

figure 3. field walking surveys with metal detectors undertaken in santa Margarida i els Monjos airfield.

figure 4. screencapture of the spatial database designed to perform spatial analysis.

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