No man left behind

Most of the time, archaeologists focus on uncovering the mysteries of our ancient world – but not always. The dig that Nathan Davis took part in this summer was very different to the others he has been involved in, but no less significant in its ambition.

For one family in Utah, the dig couldn't have been more meaningful. Its aim was to find and repatriate the body of Lt. George Wilson, who was lost while piloting a B-17 during World War II.

According to an account given to Utah's 9News, Erik Bornemeir felt compelled to find out more when his wife told him that the family didn't know what happened to her great-uncle, only that Wilson had crashed over France while on a mission. He utilized his contacts as a member of the Utah Air National Guard to find the report detailing what happened to Wilson's plane.

According to 9News, Bornemeir discovered that Wilson's plane was hit by flak a couple of minutes from the bomb drop and he was "critically wounded" in the pilot seat. He was able to maintain the flight, allowing the crew to bail out; all nine of them eventually returned home safely.

Bornemeir traveled to the town in northern France where the plane was believed to have gone down, and was able to narrow the search to a farmer's field. Almost immediately, his metal detector uncovered a piece of fuselage.

When the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency – an agency within the Department of Defense that works to bering home military personnel who went missing in action – caught wind of Bornemeir's work, they partnered with Colorado State University and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to develop a mission to recover Wilson's remains.

Davis, who is currently in his senior year at Montana State University, majoring in archaeology, was part of that mission.

"I was doing an archaeology field school earlier this summer in Wyoming, and one of the students there with me was going to this project in France and said there might have been a couple of spots open," he says.

"I and another of the students from the field school talked to the guy that was the head of the project, had a little interview with him and ended up going to France."

Davis flew out at the beginning of August to spend two weeks working on the repatriation project.

"We were digging to try and find either a part of the plane, like a serial number, or a bone that could be identified as George," he says.

"We did find parts of the plane. They were all over the field there and we got a lot out. It was mostly just small pieces, and we would find unfired .50 cal rounds from where the plane crashed."

Davis isn't allowed to say much about what he personally found at this point, except that finding one of those .50 cal rounds was an exciting moment, and that he uncovered many small pieces of airplane and glass from the crash.

The B-17 itself, of course, is no longer at the site.

"I believe, from reports, that the farmers there right after the war drug the plane off the field and continued tilling it," he says.

"There weren't any large chunks of airplane, but I believe they never found the cockpit so that's what they were trying to find here – although I believe accounts vary."

Around 25 archaeologists worked on the project, including Davis' friend and two people from the field school he'd been attending. For Davis, who intends to pursue a career in the field and is a senior this year at Montana State University, it was also an opportunity to absorb knowledge from more senior figures in archaeology.

"There were actually a lot of students there, but there were some graduate students and Rick Weatherman, an archaeologist from the University of Wyoming. It was fun to talk to professional archaeologists," he says.

A repatriation project of this kind was probably not what Davis had in mind when he began his studies. His path to archaeology was through his family, best known to this community and beyond for uncovering, exploring and preserving the Vore Buffalo Jump.

"I've been really close to the Vore Buffalo Jump my entire life, so that was kind of my window into archaeology, but I just think it's fascinating to be able to look into the past at how people used to live," he says.

"For thousands and thousands of years, modern humans have been around and living in different ways, and I think it's fascinating to see how people interact with their environment."

Davis' chief interest is in paleo-indigenous sites and human remains, particularly pre-contact. The repatriation project was a lot different to his previous experiences of dig sites, both in purpose and approach.

"I've worked on two paleo-indigenous sites that were around 9000 and 11,000 years old respectively, and then also a historic site that was an 1800s coal mining town," he says.

"All three of those were a lot different because it's academic archaeology, so you're finding stuff in situ and digging really slowly because the distribution of artifacts is important. We mark everything we find with GPS, but in France we were just trying to find the missing pilot, so we weren't really looking for things in situ – we'd dig up a unit and then screen to see if we found anything."

This goes against the normal "rules" of a dig, he explains, because under ordinary circumstances, it's vital that the site is as undisturbed as possible.

"As an archaeologist, it's important that people don't go into sites and destroy them or take things, because artifacts are only important if they're in the context of where you find them. That's where you can learn about them," he says.

As the team of 25 left, the project came to the end for this year. Davis doesn't know yet whether the team's efforts were successful.

"All the stuff is taken to a military lab. For any bone, DNA analysis would be done if they thought it was human," he explains.

"The archaeologists on the project there weren't actually calling any shots as to whether they found him."

If Wilson hasn't been found, he believes the project will continue next year. Davis isn't sure yet whether he'll be able to join them, as he'll have graduated by that point and may be working on a dig.

Either way, he feels honored to have been part of the mission.

"I don't know the family or much about wartime archaeology, but it was really cool to be trying to find this guy who was never found. I think it's really important," he says.