John G. Sabol

Lead Archaeologist

C.A.S.P.E.R. Research Center

(Center for Archaeological Studies of Presence Through Ethnographic

Resonance)

This is not so much a new form of paranormal investigation, as it is a contemporary type of archaeological “excavation” in a discipline called “the archaeology of the contemporary past”:

“No digging required. Just observe, engage, and think”

(Harrison and Scofield 2010: 70, After Modernity: Archaeological Approaches to the Contemporary Past.)

This approach is “conceptualizing research methods to enable them to deal with vague, ephemeral, and multiple realities” (John Law 2004:141-54, After Method: Mess in Social Science Research).

“No space ever vanishes utterly leaving no trace” (Henri Lefebvre, The

Production of Space).

Archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes, in her Guide to the Prehistoric and Roman Monuments of England and Wales (1951) has said:

“….perhaps places where men had felt intensely and acted

violently never quite rid themselves of the effects; perhaps such feelings and created only in the minds of later beholders – yet even so their survival is real”.

Once such place is a battlefield. And American Civil War battlefields are unique archaeological sites. In a recent article in North American Archaeology entitled The Value and Treatment of Civil War Sites, the authors stress the “special nature of Civil War sites”, one of which is important to our research there:

“Battlefield dead were not comprehensively removed

from the battlefield”

There is a real possibility that many Civil War battlefields contain human remains. This adds to “both their research potential and sensitivity” (page 42). In their recommendations, as part of a defined core of useful approaches, they suggest archaeologists “learn and apply the concept of IMP” (page 60).

This “requires the archaeologist to think like a Civil War soldier”. This is what we do in our “ghost excavations” on Civil War battlefields.

On a Civil War battlefield, we use these important considerations:

Environment: soundscape/military space: soundscape as

memory, not landscape of memory: “sounds and their original context are stored in memory as patterns….and the sound, if heard again, usually brings the entire complex back to life….a particular pattern of sound always produces the same response” (Barry Truax).

Palimpsest: layers of sound and presence. You either

inscribe or resonate.

Personal Biographies: The “Who” and “Why”. Cultural codes: “Good Death”; “Domestic Imagery”: “unattended death sparked terror and signified a great spiritual and emotional loss”.

Excavation: “Dig-Deep” – no trowel, backhoe, or metal detector, but “soundmarks” that resonate in particular spaces”.

Identity: “Band of Brothers”; IMP behaviors. Manifestation: Rapid/multi-sensory (like battle).

The auditory manifestations must be contextual to the archaeological record:

“ To establish one’s explanations, one must predict things

about the archaeological record based on already accepted facts….and then find that these predictions are themselves fulfilled on examination of the record” (Henry Glassie 1977: 277, Archaeology and Folklore: Common Anxieties, Common Hopes in Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things).

“Traces must be in some way related to social realities” (Ian Hodder, archaeologist).

Ethnographies of Communication (E.O.C.): particular socio-cultural contexts that reflects a specific linguistic interaction in a particular space (“roll-call” in a cover/concealment battlefield space).

Lift-up over soundings.

3-D (distinctive, distinguishable, distinctively different) Isochronous

Reiterative

Why Burnside Bridge? Low level of contamination: physical and cultural Restricted environment: isolated, in a valley. Personal biographies involving the cultural codes. Intense/deadly; heroic.

Methodological “tool-kit”:

Storyboard of IMP in KOCOA.

RT-EVP/video (triangulation) and isochronous

“Abduction”.