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Large-scale research has been underway for a while now at Étaples-sur-Mer and Camiers, in the Pas-de-Calais, on the camps which saw the birth of Napoleon’s first Grande Armée, composed of the troops set to invade Britain. This research, initially preventative but subsequently programmed, is to be seen within the broader context of the currently very lively world of the archaeology of recent conflicts. This is a global “archaeology”, bringing together and comparing all the existing documentary sources, without exception. That being said, rich and diverse though they may be, written sources or testimonials – military archives, correspondence, eye-witness accounts, etc. – remain nevertheless partial and biased. Furthermore, the “archives of the ground” – an expression signifying the full importance of the archaeological “document” for the writing, reading or reinterpreting of history – are similarly incomplete. However, when the latter are combined with the historian’s traditional sources, they open the way for a new, anthropological approach. The condition of the unknown soldier then, not grand military history, comes centre stage.