The story of the cultural landscape of the north-west German lowland is the story of peatland transgression associated with the advanced loss of settlement area. As a consequence of paludification oak and pine forests died off and over thousands of years large areas of mineral ground became more and more overgrown by expanding fens and raised bogs. Thus colonization of north-west Germany was strongly influenced by environmental change, forcing humans to evade or to adapt to spacious paludification. One adaptation was the construction of wooden trackways. They served as bridges to cross swampy ground or to subdue mineral islands within the peatland. From north-west Germany more than 350 of these trackways are known up to now, most of them detected when harvesting peat. Peat preserved subfossil trees, wooden trackways and residuals of settlements testify to landscape changes.
Dendrochronological and dendroecological data of trees from peatland, riverines and trackway timber as well as pollen/NPP analytical investigations and peat stratigraphy allow detailed, chronologically high defined reconstructions of landscape development. Put together in a mosaic, they mirror changes in site conditions, environmental (climate) change, building and maintenance of trackways, and, together with archaeological records, the interaction of nature and man.
Examples from the Duemmer Lowland, one of the great north-west German peatland areas, show opportunities of this interdisciplinary approach. The area is characterized by numerous wooden trackways and pre-historic settlements. Here German peatland archaeology had its origin more than 200 years ago.
Highlighted are the reconstruction and chronological/temporal classification of:
peatland development
changes in site conditions (hydrology), correlated with climate change
colonization processes
construction and maintenance of trackways
3D-modelling of moor extension and thickness of peat coverage for different ages