Secrets buried with the dead after Britain's bloodiest battle

The Battle of Towton, which took place on March 29, 1461, was part of the Wars of the Roses and fought between the Houses of York and

Lancaster for control of the English throne. An estimated 50,000 to 80,000 soldiers participated in the conflict which took place between the villages ofTowton and Saxton around 12 miles south west of York in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday.

Exact losses are a matter of continuing debate, but there are estimates of up to 30,000 casualties. The outcome was such a decisive victory for the Yorkists that it left the Lancastrian army effectively finished as a fighting force.

An astonishing one per cent of the English population died in the

battle and the equivalent today would be 600,000 people. As a result, the course of British history was changed and Edward IV was later crowned king of England.

But despite Towton's magnitude and historical significance there is still much unknown about the medieval conflict and recently a team of world-famous archaeologists descended on the Yorkshire site in an attempt to discover more about what occurred there nearly 600 years ago.

The special investigators arefrom the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology at Glasgow University, a unique facility established in 2006, that has already earned an international reputation as a place of excellence for studying battlefields and other archaeological manifestations of human conflict.

Tony Pollard, the centre's director, has worked all over the Western Front and investigated battlefields from the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 in South Africa to Culloden in the north of Scotland where the last full-scale battle on British soil took place.

He says: "Towton was one of the most important battles in British

history and we want to find out as much as we can about it. For example, we believe the conflict was the first time a gun was ever used in battle and we have now carried out a metal detector survey in the hope we can establish more facts and give ourselves a better understanding of what really happened."

Pollard and his team hope to expand on the research of a colleague from the centre, Tim Sutherland, who has spent more than a decade

investigating Towton. Sutherland was part of a team from the University of Bradford Department of Archaeological Sciences that dramatically uncovered a mass grave containing 43 individuals from the battle underneath Towton Hall in 1996. Following the discovery, the

application of forensic anthropological techniques for identifying and recording injuries allowed them a glimpse of the personal consequences of battle for some who took part.

Most of the individuals, Pollard says, suffered multiple injuries that were far in excess of those necessary to cause disability and death. From the distribution of cuts, chops, incisions, and punctures, it appeared the men sustained their injuries while in a position that did not allow them to defend themselves: in other words they were mutilated.

The archaeologists also found that the individuals were stockier than the medieval norm and appeared similar in build to modern professional athletes. It led to a theory that the men were probably professional soldiers selected for the battle because of previous experience and their training in armed combat from a young age.

Some support for this relationship comes from a number of healed injuries, testimony to prior involvement in armed conflict. Pollard says the centre's work is like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle and there could be many other mass graves at Towton.

"One of the most important finds has been the discovery of more than 300 arrow heads," he adds. "After a battle the winning side would collect the arrow heads to be used in future conflicts. It's one of the earliest examples of recycling, but this is one of the few sites where we have been able to collect a significant number of arrow heads and seeing them emerge from the ground has been very exciting.

"By analysing the site and looking at the existing historical records, we are hopeful of building up a more accurate picture of what actually happened all those centuries ago. Medieval time-keeping was far removed from our own and there is now a convincing argument to suggest this wasn't one battle, but three battles over the course of 24 hours.

"There is so much left to discover in Towton and every new find sheds a little bit more light on the events of 600 years ago."

Pollard's team has already made some astonishing discoveries, most recently in Northern France where in 2007 they discovered a mass grave containing the remains of 250 soldiers missing since a conflict in the First World War. The Battle of Fromelles, which took place on July 19, 1916, was the first major fight on the Western Front involving British and Australian troops side by side and has since gone down in history as an unmitigated disaster for the Allies. The 5th Division Australian Imperial Force provided the bulk of the force with six battalions containing around 6,000 men, while the British 61st Division provided 3,300 men. Facing the Allies across no-man's land was a certain Adolf Hitler, then a young Austrian soldier serving with the 16th Bavarian Reserve Division.

After a night and a day of fighting, 1,500 British and 5,533 Australian soldiers had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner. It was a decisive victory for Germany and the Australian and British losses were

sustained without the Allies gaining any ground whatsoever.

The Australian losses were the equivalent to the country's combined casualties in the Boer, Korean and Vietnam wars. While many of the bodies were recovered, not all of those cut down could be accounted for and hundreds of families in Australia and Britain received letters stating only that their men were missing in action.

In 2007, Pollard took a call from the Australian government asking him to investigate claims that post-war burial teams had missed a mass grave on the battlefield.

Pollard said: "We examined the historical evidence and carried out a topographical study. We had to use non-invasive techniques so as not to disturb the burial site. We used metal detectors and geophysics and after spending three weeks at Fromelles we concluded that there was indeed compelling evidence of a mass grave that had been overlooked," he says.

Pollard's team reported their findings to the Australians and were asked to return in 2008 to spend another three weeks digging, although their remit was not remove the soldiers' remains, only to provisionally identify them.

"We partially excavated six pits and found conclusive evidence of human remains in five of them as well as extensive artefacts confirming the remains were Australian and British," Pollard says.

The 250 British and Australian soldiers had been laid out carefully, side by side, in six pits where the Germans had buried them after the battle. Pollard's team found the dead men's boots, rings, and lucky charms. There were crucifixes and fragments of the Bible and even the return half of an Australian train ticket from Fremantle to Perth.

Historians concluded that the men must have died fighting bravely for the simple reason that they were buried behind enemy lines, which means they must have breached the German positions. It was an astonishing find and an emotional moment for all concerned.

"To some extent, Fromelles was overshadowed by the Somme in Britain so I hope that our work there drew attention to the thousands of men who were killed," Pollard says.

Indeed, early last year, the Australian, British and French Governments agreed to exhume, identify and rebury the soldiers' remains with full military honours. Furthermore, DNA extracted from the skeletons

suggested it might be possible to collect genetic material and match it with that of their descendants.

Since then, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has embarked on an unprecedented 3m scientific project to identify every single soldier.

It is a gargantuan piece of detective work that will continue for five years involving bones, teeth, hundreds of tiny artefacts and, of

course, thousands of relatives scattered all over the world.

Pollard said: "The commission now has the DNA data of all 250 skeletons, and the names of all 1,685 men with no known grave who died at Fromelles; they are all listed at www.cwgc.org/ fromelles.

"If relatives of all the missing come forward for DNA testing, then 250 families will be reunited with their loved ones. The commission has already established potential DNA matches in Britain and Australia for half of the missing names but it needs to find relatives of the others."

n Relatives of the missing can contact the Fromelles Project by email – [email protected] – or by calling 01452 712612, extension 6303/7330.