Interesting work MMFA, you should get also ancient cartography of the area, from the XVII century the French Cartography should be among the best in Europe.
You should also try to understand how deep is the archeological substrate of the ground formed from the age of the battle till today, the thickness of this substrate varies depending on the type of soil (agricultural, urban, etc.) and depending on the European region you are studying.
In the end what I think is that we should build an image of the ground during the V century, what now seems a ridge of few meters might have had a very different shape even only five centuries ago, so building a map featuring the historical development of the soil should be the basis for this interesting work.
We have indeed debated this at length. The area is highly agricultural, so a 10 meter ridge today may have been much longer or higher in the past. Currently my theory is that the romans were on the north side of that ridge with the river to guard their flank.
Well, figuring that each army might be 30,000 strong and 80% infantry and 20% cavalry, and that the cavalry require full intervals, and the infantry almost no intervals, that the first line was 8 deep for the infantry and 4 deep for the cavalry, and the reserves were as strong as the first line... we have an awful lot of assumptions.
Infantry - 24,000 in two lines, each line 8 deep x 1,500 across = 4,500 feet
Cavalry - 6,000 in four groups, front line and reserve on each flank, each front line group 4 deep x 375 across = 2,250 feet on each flank
Estimated total = 9,000 feet, or half that, or double that, depending on army size and deployment.
It wasn't just Romans though, the Alans used a lot of cavalry, and Aetius probably deployed his cavalry in the same area as the Alans if they had the river on their flank. Besides current estimates place the armies at around 60,000 strong for each side. The Romans alone fielded about 1/3 of that.
It was probably closer to a 40-60% ratio regarding cavalry to infantry (respectively). I'm still looking into other possibilities.
There are some large ridges west of Troyes on the edge of the plain, but what little archaeological evidence there is suggests it was probably on the north side of the River Aube.
Just read through the thread: The Pouan treasure is no more related to the battle on campus mauriacus in newer publications ( as "Attila und die Hunnen", Theiss Verlag, Historisches Museum der Pfalz Speyer 2007)
The items are dating from the early 5. to the last third of the 5. century, especially the spatha is a typical western form in the later 5.
Als Mensch zu dumm, als Schwein zu kleine Ohren...
It's always been possible its related to Chalons, considering the Location. The dating helps determine it is potentially related, as Chalons was fought in 451.
I don't see how your dating is contradictory of that. If I had the Ph.d and the funding I would spend years covering the Catalaunian plains with a metal detector, particularly the area around the river Aube and Pouan.
Finally managed to find some sort of topographical map on Google Images, of Troyes and Chalons (respectively). I will try and see if I can get any results using google earth.
The form of the gold-hilt-spatha is too late for 451. all examples which are datable are from the 480s onwards. The Childerich-tomb-piece and the one from Pouan seem to be the oldest ones in that row.
Nothing in Pouan can be said as definitely gotic or frankish. Most of the stuff is made in the style typical for the warrior-aristocracy in the times after the fall of Attilas reign ( as there are the finds of Blucina, Apahida 1-3, Tournai for example)
Was the find of Pouan a burial or just a hoard?
Als Mensch zu dumm, als Schwein zu kleine Ohren...
So the question is what led people to say it`s "wisigotic" or connected to the battle...
Another reason why I doubt that is that burying men with their weapons was not a gotic tradition. Neither the graves of the chernjachov-culture in Romania (dating before the arrival of the huns)nor later wisigotic graves in Spain or ostrogotic graves in Hungary or Italy ( as far as they are to be connected to gots in general) contain weapons.
In Spain this fact is also used as means of separating wisigotic graves from suebians, vandals and so on
Also the gold-hilt-spathas of this type were mainly found in francish and alamannic graves. There are only few examples out of this area.
Als Mensch zu dumm, als Schwein zu kleine Ohren...
I decided to move my search to Catalaunum, as the name of the battle probably means it was close to the Town. Almost Immediately I found a likely candidate. The Red lines mark the crest of the ridge, which varies between 10 and 30 feet high. Although it is overall rather shallow, on the far right it is rather steep between the ridge itself and the nearby hill (also marked along it's crest). It is approximately 4.6 Kilometers long (about 3 miles.)
EDIT: The Image isn't uploading right now I'll try and upload it later.
![[Image: sXjtBIr.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/sXjtBIr.jpg)
