ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some theoretical aspects of combat site archaeology and take Kalkriese and Harzhorn as examples for the application of these theoretical considerations in the research strategy, the methods of analysis and the interpretation of the two sites. The discovery of the Augustan battlefield of Kalkriese near Osnabruck, Lower Saxony, in 1987 was the starting point of scientific battlefield archaeology in Germany. More than 20 years later a second Germanic-Roman battlefield was discovered in Germany: the site of Harzhorn near Kalefeld, Lower Saxony. When dealing with the archaeological identification of combat sites it is useful to define different types of fighting and the spatial scale on which the research takes place. Usually the term battle and battlefield are used. In Kalkriese a zigzag wall of the attackers was excavated alongside a narrow passage, the so-called Oberesch that led to the reconstruction of a single file combat. At the Oberesch in Kalkriese remarkable evidence was excavated on revisiting the battlefield.
