Exciting find at Gallipoli battlefields

The view out to sea from the Anzac soldiers camps at Gallipoli. Photo / supplied

A team of historians and archaeologists has uncovered an area where Anzacs spent much of their time while at war in the Gallipoli.

The most significant fieldwork exercise of its kind since the First World War has just been completed using non-invasive, advanced mapping and GPS technology which records positions accurate to within 30cm. The aim was to provide detailed information about what remains of the 1915 battlefield.

At an area called Quinn's Post the survey group discovered an area known as Malone's Terraces, previously thought to have completely disappeared.

Ministry of Culture and Heritage war historian Dr Ian McGibbon said these terraces were created by Lieutenant-Colonel William Malone, renowned commander of the Wellington Infantry Battalion.

"When Malone's men relieved the Australians at Quinn's Post in June, the position was in some disarray.

"Malone greatly improved the arrangements at the post, including creating the terraces as sleeping areas for close support troops. "From this time Quinn's Post, which was a vital position on which the whole Anzac defence depended, was regarded as fairly secure."

The terraces were just metres from the front line.

This year the survey team also recovered more than 100 artefacts depicting life on the battlefields, including three water bottles with bullet holes, medical bottles, a tin pannikin, tin food containers, expended ammunition, glass shards, shrapnel and barbed wire fragments.

These have been handed to the Maritime Museum at Canakkale, Turkey, for preservation.

The survey was a tri-nation undertaking set up after an agreement between the prime ministers of New Zealand, Australia and Turkey in 2005.