-First impressions of the project:
Volunteers and professional archeologists are staying at two Spanish Tourist board hostels. Almost 35 years after the dictator's death in 1975 , his traces remain; in the name of the street, Franco Street; in the Falangist symbol adorning a wall. The 12 volunteers come from
Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, the US and Canada: a diverse group coming to the project from many different angles.

 Saturday, 13 Sept:

We drove into the dusty hills to search out the evidence  left  by the British Battalion who had dug trenches here to stave off an advance.  In this arid isolated spot we were asked to imagine the barbed wire, the deep trenches, the mortar rounds . All over the hillside were bullets and metal objects on the ground or just below, traces of a few days of combat.  

Below the hill, was a Popaloo dry toilet, and a canopy for respite from the fierce sun . We followed a path up through thorny bushes to the top of the spur of hill  which gave an amazing view  of the countryside. Our job was to search with a metal detector. When it beeped,  we would scrape the surface to find German bullets fired from a mile away, bits of wire, pieces of metal ammunition boxes.. The trained archaeologists could see small anomalies on the hillside, which were then marked with a colored stick,. But in a short time, we could begin to sees objects lying on the ground.

After a break of crusty bread and lovely tomatoes, salami and fruit,  the positions of the finds we had marked were recorded calling out to a staffer with a transom on the next hill. Elaine was astonished at the detail of data: identifying each tiny piece of metal, each twist of wire... and giving it a number and location. Meanwhile Wendy was sweating at the top of the hill , cheerfully shoveling,carefully scraping in a trench, volunteers calling out for an identification when they found something they hoped was of interest.

Elaine was amazed that such seemingly unimportant objects could tell archaeologists a story: Russian bullets from 1917, German machine gun casings, a jug, ammunition boxes and unexploded mortars.

Through repetitive work in the sun and dust  personal and national histories are uncovered.
An International Brigader from Wales, Alun Menai Williams , was asked: What was Spain like?
 He replied , "I can't tell you- I only know the taste of the soil when you have your nose six inches from the ground, crawling".    But modern scientific techniques help put all the little pieces  together for a view a little
further off the ground.