Cite this as: Klinke, L. 2023 Cultural Landscape Change from Late Neolithic to Late Middle Ages in Northern Westphalia. Interplay between the natural environment and the anthropogenic archaeological remains, Internet Archaeology 62. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.62.9
In a methodologically exemplary study area in northern Westphalia, it has been possible to identify a cultural landscape that has existed since the Late Neolithic. In this diachronic synopsis, it is evident that the cultural landscape was constituted around a geological phenomenon into a sacred landscape from the Late Neolithic onwards, then persisted for at least three millennia and then became more secular in the Middle Ages. New absolute dating has made it possible to synchronise the changes in the natural environment with changes in the anthropogenic material-cultural traces in the study area. Changes in biodiversity are no longer documented exclusively in the pollen data, but can now also be read from the anthropogenic archaeological relics.
Corresponding author: Leo Klinke
leo.klinke@lvr.de
LVR-State Service for Archaeological Heritage in the Rhineland, Germany
Figure 1: The research area near Osnabrück (left and middle). The soil values within the study area (right). (Graphics: Leo Klinke)
Figure 2: Recalibration of the pollen diagrams in the vicinity of the research area. (Graphics: Barth 2001, fig 15 modified by Leo Klinke)
Figure 3: Off-site pollen diagrams of the Meerbecke Niederung. (Data source: Barth 2001; Graphics: Leo Klinke)
Figure 4: The positions of the megalithic graves within the first cultural landscape. (Graphics: Leo Klinke)
Figure 5: Figure 5: The reconstructed traffic and communication corridors. Late Neolithic time slice (purple), Metal Ages (white). (Graphics: Leo Klinke)
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