Researchers at Durham University have brought together, for the first time, the archaeology of the guerrilla wars, insurgencies and asymmetrical conflicts that shaped twentieth-century Europe. Led by Dr Rui Gomes Coelho of the Department of Archaeology, the collection argues that the Europe we live in today was never inevitable, and that its future remains open.
The special issue gathers studies from Croatia, Finland, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Together they recover the traces of people who fought, hid and sheltered others, often against overwhelming odds.
What archaeology adds is a sense of scale. The remains show that these struggles were far from marginal. They demanded great effort, organisation and risk, leaving lasting marks on the land and enduring effects on collective memory — achievements largely won by ordinary people.
Where almost nothing survives, archaeologists work with fragments, memory and local knowledge, alongside the communities whose pasts are at stake. Recording these sites becomes a way of bearing witness.
Dr Coelho said: “These were people who chose to resist, often when the odds looked hopeless. Their traces are faint, but they are everywhere. Reading them reminds us that the Europe we live in was never the only one possible, and that fairer futures remain within reach.”
The collection argues that today’s Europe, with its nation states, hard borders and capitalist economy, was not the only possible outcome. Some of the movements studied were fighting not only for liberation from occupation, but for a fairer, more equal future. At the same time, it was also thanks to some of these insurgencies that the continent defeated Nazism and fascism in the first place. Had some of these struggles ended differently, the continent might look nothing like it does now.
That openness matters, the editors suggest, at a moment when Europe faces the threat of wider war, deepening inequality and the normalisation of xenophobic and racist violence both at its borders and within them. If the continent could once have been otherwise, it can be again.
Image 1: Excavation of WW2 partisan shelter in Tomići, Croatia, September 2020 (Rui Gomes Coelho)
