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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

>> The first surprise was the discovery of a pit containing the remains of a German soldier, likely fallen in battle in February 1945 during the fights over the Grzybek bridge in the final days of World War II. However, what seemed to be a significant find soon revealed additional secrets, leading the team to an even older and extraordinary discovery.

Contrary to almost all comments so far, the dead soldier and the artifacts are not related. And this is not a grave. This is where a soldier fell. A grave is where someone is buried, not the place where they were killed and lost to history. The soldier may have been wounded and hiding in the pit, or literally fell atop, but would not have been burried there by anyone. The older artifacts were there long before ww2.

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Literally from the article:

"Popkiewicz believes these coins may have belonged to the German soldier, possibly a numismatics enthusiast, as they hail from several countries the German 73rd Infantry Division likely traversed, to which the soldier may have belonged. The hypothesis suggests that the soldier collected ancient coins as a hobby or perhaps exchanged or acquired them during his military movements."

They're calling looting a hobby?

Careful now. My comment was flagged and removed for suggesting the soldier was a Nazi who was looting.

In practice, the term grave is often used for any final resting place whether intentionally buried or not e.g. "watery grave".

He could very well have been buried. Getting rid of the corpses after a battle is important.

A modern battlefield grave is identifiable. Any trained archaeologist would spot such a grave, describe and most likely report it to authorities. There are recognizable signs. We dont dispose of dead soldiers in unmarked pits, not individuals.

By February 1945 the war was going poor enough for Germany that it's unlikely all such graves had full procedures followed.

All modern battlefield graves are identifiable as such?

That seems like the kind of bold and all encompassing statement that would be trivial to prove incorrect.

There are teams of people who go out to dig up battlefield graves. Soldiers know this. So, if they have to bury someone, they generally mark the site. Bodies are also laid out with a degree of dignity, not tossed. In very simple terms, soldiers in modern conflict tend to die face-down. A battlefield grave will have the body face-up, covered in loose earth, and positioned like they were lying in a flat bed. A body crumpled up in a pit is almost certainly not a battlefield grave.

(Soldiers dont bury bodies while under fire. The burials happen after the battle is over by whatever side now holds the ground.)

"We dont dispose of dead soldiers in unmarked pits, not individuals."

Not sure if I understand you right, but unmarked pits were very much a common thing in the last days of WW2 in europe. Plenty of dead individuals, no one knew where they belonged and not much interest to find out.

Where there were lots of bodies, pits were used. But a lone body would have been burried differently. Even in the wars today, pits are only used when necessary to dispose of large numbers. Single dead soldiers can be put in proper graves as time/manpower is not an issue with a single body.

Have you ever dug out a grave for a human?

I didn't, only for a dog and this was already tough work in stony ground. Add frozen ground and the need to care to other things(and maybe no shovel), like surviving the last days of war and I can imagine many dead bodies not getting proper graves.

I think that’s the point. That work isn’t going to be done for a single unidentified corpse on a battlefield.

"Single dead soldiers can be put in proper graves as time/manpower is not an issue with a single body"

Just desputing the non issue claim here.

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