How long would the signs of a battle remain?

[Darklance]

Given a mix of bronze/iron armor and weapons, how long would the remains be around it no one buried or looted the corpses for 400 years?The skeletons as well. The battle is in the open air around a fort which sits on a very large hill. The climate of the area is basically Greece. Obviously most of it is gone but I'm trying to get it as realistic as possible. Thanks.

 

[Undead Pete]

It depends on what the battle involved.

Were there extremely high level magic spells being used? They may have altered the landscape permanently....craters, barren areas, fused glass, etc....

Were humanoids the only combatants, or were there other larger creatures? the larger the beast, the more likely their bones will remain intact.

Need more info...

 

[Impeesa]

Most of the iron would have rusted away, but IIRC the bronze will last hella long presuming no one's looted the site..

--Impeesa--

 

[Oracular Vision]

Let's see here...

need rate of rusting of iron...
rate of accumulation of dust and refuse...
rate of decomposition of skeletal remains...
wood decomposition rates...

Or did you want a guess?

Corrosion is actually a very complex process...but let me simplify it and say that you lose one milli-inch per year of iron, so that would be 400 milli-inches lost, or .4 of an inch, almost a half an inch...it would be more in salt water or any water for that matter...armor would all be rusted away, but triangular spear-heads more than .5 inch would have remnants. You can find pictures of these in the better museums online...

see this link for more...
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/MatSelect/corrsteel.htm

Dust and cometary accretion is at the rate of, roughly, 78,000 tons/yr, so that would be 400 times 78,000 tons, or more simply, in inches, about 2 meters every 1,000 years, leaving us with 40 % of 2 meters, or about 2.4 feet of cover over the remains...this might be less or more depending on wind/rain/erosion...

see this link for more...

http://www.expanding-earth.org/page_10.htm

skeletons would remain in the earth but would have been subject to predation by wild animals, so whole skeletons would be unlikely, and the pieces thereof would be covered by earth of course as above. I can find out how badly they decompose, but it would depend a lot on the wetness and type of soils. Lets assume that bones would remain, but not whole skeletons, and there would be a lot of decay.

Wood is too open a subject, soft woods would rot and be eaten by termites and so on, while hard wood might last long enough to be buried, then to rot slowly if water is present, or dry out if it is dry, and be reasonably preserved.

So, your typical spear-carrying guy in chain mail would be worn down to a few bones, a few pieces of wood, a rusty spearhead in bad shape, and maybe a few items in pouches that had rotted away, and be under about 2 and a half feet, more or less, of dirt...burials of course would have helped preserve personal effects, weapons, and skeletons.

Is that good enough?

 

[Glyfair]

This sounds like a history expert question. I vaguely remembering watching a documentary recently on a Roman Army that got slaughtered by a Germanic army in an ambush in a forest. I seem to remember that they didn't find the battlefield for several years (because the Roman army wasn't supposed to be there). They found bodies and such where they fell on the battlefield.

This is quite vague, but perhaps some history experts might remember some details of how long some battlefields went untouched. Of course, 400 years is probably a bit beyond what is likely to have happened untouched.

Glyfair of Glamis

 

[Umbran]

Dust and cometary accretion is at the rate of, roughly, 78,000 tons/yr, so that would be 400 times 78,000 tons, or more simply, in inches, about 2 meters every 1,000 years, leaving us with 40 % of 2 meters, or about 2.4 feet of cover over the remains...this might be less or more depending on wind/rain/erosion...

That sounds wrong to me. Very wrong. I'm in Boston, there are grave sites within a short stroll of me that are clearly dated back to 1707. By your numbers, those grave markers should be buried. You can go to Civil War battlefields and still find artifacts on the surface, but by your numbers they should be a foot underground.

 

[Vaxalon]

Untouched battlefields (there aren't very many of these in the real world, btw) would show certain scars for some time. If any defensive earthworks were built, they'd show for a long time, depending on the erosion rate.

If there were slingers in the battle, their lead pellets would survive mostly intact.

 

[Desdichado]

I assume you're referring to the battle of the Teutoberg Forest, although to my knowledge the Roman Army was only found a few years later. 400 years is a completely different scale.

Again, though, it depends on the battle. Is there a castle or fort that burned to a shell? That would still show. Some weappons and skeletal remains should be relatively easy to find, depending on a lot of things.

You could say that the remains were covered fairly quickly (floodplain or something) and recent erosion has started to show bones sticking out of the ground, or something. If you just want to make sure that some signs of the battle are there, it's not hard to envision scenarios in which that can happen.

 

[Squire James]

That sounds wrong to me. Very wrong. I'm in Boston, there are grave sites within a short stroll of me that are clearly dated back to 1707. By your numbers, those grave markers should be buried. You can go to Civil War battlefields and still find artifacts on the surface, but by your numbers they should be a foot underground.

This is where that "depending on erosion" part of the disclaimer kicks in...

 

[Umbran]

This is where that "depending on erosion" part of the disclaimer kicks in...

My point being that in the majority of places, there's more erosion than you might think. While the values you give for the amount of accretion may be accurate, it doesn't seem to accumulate that much on dry land. People don't have to dig that far to get at human archaeological sites. The numbers you give may make a theoretical upper limit, but aren't a good guideline of how much new turf will actually be there.

Also, there's the note that those numbers are based on real world astronomical conditions. If your planet isn't in a real-world-type solar system, you may have no such accretion at all...