Sorry guys, but I'm still beating that dead mule. It finally occcured to me why "purposely" bury the mule at all, after all it is in the middle of nowhere, and who cares? If the Romans dug a mass grave for the human bones, it made sense the throw the nearby animal bones over them for that much more protection against scavangers. But why bury the "lone" mule at the embankment at all? Maybe they didn't purposely bury it. Maybe it was buried inadvertently long after the battle when the Romans came back! Maybe this was when the turf and chalk wall was made, when Germanicus' army returned and the burials were conducted. It wouldn't surprise me if Germanicus' army took more precautions that Varus, and building a defensive position to overlook the grave details might have been a sensible thing.<br>
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What exactly are these "chalk blocks" anyway? It has never been adequately explained what they are and where they came from. Because of the swampy nature of the region, I could imagine the Romans bringing some building materials with them to make causeways,etc, and perhaps because this is a "lightweight" building material, there might have been some practicality to hauling it around. If this material turns out NOT to be from the immediate region, I can certainly imagine the Romans having a greater logistical ability than the Germans for carrying it with them.<br>
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The point I was trying to make about there still being a "main battle area" to be found, is that the a battle involving tens of thousands of men, and most probably dying on the Roman side, is that it would go on "for miles", and leave far more than the sparse collection from Kalkreise. To say it would "not be preserved" in other places is a "cop out". Yes, maybe organic materials, and even ferrous objects could be less preserved in the region around Kalkreise, but the bulk of the military equipment finds are cupric alloy, and even in the worst natural conditions in the world, they would still be relatively intact. If a large portion of the "Varus running battle" took place in the mashlands, it could explain why so little has been found in the elevated, forested areas around Kalkreise. However, if the "battle" was largely fought in the marshes, then there would have to be copious amounts of Roman military equipment still there, as it never could have been adequately salvaged by the Germans, who with their tendencey for "water" deposits/sacrifices, may have been quite content to leave it there anyway. I am sure by this time, the Kalkreise achaeologists would have used proton magnatometers/ground penetrating radar to determine if any Roman military equipment lay in the former mashes around Kalkreise. This equipment is capable of detecting metallic objects at enormous depths, and if they have searched and found nothing, then Kalkreise simply cannot be the "last stand of the Varus legions" for there would be a continuous trail of "battle artifacts" leading to where the first attack took place, and all along the line, evidence of tens of thousands of men fighting, not a couple hundred as the actual artifacts, (and the new National Geo painting) indicate. Dan<br>
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