Soil Diggers in Action - Educational excavation at Luftwaffe Airfield

And so it began – the first archaeological excavation of Feldluftpark Pori research project! Last year the Finnish Cultural Foundation kindly granted us Mullankaivajat ("Soil Diggers") grant to organize an educational excavation together with the high school students of PSYL. After an uncertain start, due to changing covid restrictions, a group of ten students, two archaeology students and I headed to the site that once used to be a part of the Luftwaffe airfield in Pori.

This was the first group to properly excavate what remains of the Luftwaffe airfield.

The site selected for the excavation was a German built barracks building, which first appears on the maps of the airfield in 1942. While the purpose of the building was unknown, it lied relatively close to buildings such as a canteen, stables and garage. The barracks survived the war and wasn't among the buildings that Germans destroyed while retreating from Pori in September 1944. In November 1944, the building is described as empty and unused by the Finnish Defense Forces.

As the wartime purpose and the ultimate fate of the building were unknown, we thought that the site was ideal for an excavation. Using a metal detector, we pinpointed a suitable area for the students to dig and opened a trench of 13m². A stove peaking from under the soil was included into the trench as a curiosity.

"Porin Matti" stove filled with Arabia stamped tiles.

The field work lasted for three days. Along with the actual excavation work, the students visited nearby wartime constructions and dug a few shovel test pits to chart the extent of wartime trash pits in the area. While the main excavation trench was not finished in time due to find layers extending dee into the soil, we managed to document what we've dug so far and will continue work later with a new group of participants.

Finds from the excavation trench and nearby trash pits were numerous. While the excavation trench contained mostly construction material, cologne and medicine bottles and a bit of textiles, the trash pits were filled with wartime ceramics along with other kitchen waste. All finds will be next cleaned by the students themselves, after which we'll hopefully find what stamps and other details are hiding beneath the mud!

Discovering a sign with German writing - a find that will be properly cleaned for reading!
Location: Pori, Suomi

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