Medieval Overexploitation of Peat Triggered Large-Scale Drowning and Permanent Land Loss in Coastal North Frisia (Wadden Sea Region, Germany)
Along the southern North Sea coast from the Netherlands to Denmark, human cultivation efforts have created a unique cultural landscape. Since the Middle Ages, these interactions between humans and natural forces have induced major coastal changes. In North Frisia (Germany), storm floods in 1362 AD a...
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2024-12-01
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| author | Hanna Hadler Antonia Reiß Timo Willershäuser Dennis Wilken Ruth Blankenfeldt Bente Majchczack Stefanie Klooß Ulf Ickerodt Andreas Vött |
| author_facet | Hanna Hadler Antonia Reiß Timo Willershäuser Dennis Wilken Ruth Blankenfeldt Bente Majchczack Stefanie Klooß Ulf Ickerodt Andreas Vött |
| author_sort | Hanna Hadler |
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| description | Along the southern North Sea coast from the Netherlands to Denmark, human cultivation efforts have created a unique cultural landscape. Since the Middle Ages, these interactions between humans and natural forces have induced major coastal changes. In North Frisia (Germany), storm floods in 1362 AD and 1634 AD turned wide areas of embanked cultural land into tidal flats. Systematic geoarchaeological investigations between Nordstrand and Hallig Südfall comprise coring, trenching, sedimentary, geochemical and microfaunal palaeoenvironmental parameter analyses and radiocarbon dating. Together with geophysical prospection results and archaeological surveys, they give insights into the landscape’s development and causes for land losses. Results reveal that fens and bogs dominated from c. 800 BC to 1000 AD but are mostly missing in the stratigraphy. Instead, we found 12th to 14th cent. AD settlement remains directly on top of a pre-800 BC fossil marsh. This hiatus of c. 2000 years combined with local ‘Hufen’ settlements implies an extensive removal of peat during cultivation eventually resulting in the use of underlying marshland for agricultural purposes. Fifteenth cent. AD tidal flat deposits on top of the cultivated marsh prove that human impact lowered the ground surface below the mean high water of that time, clearly increasing the coastal vulnerability. We consider these intensive human–environment interactions as a decisive trigger for the massive loss of land and establishment of the tidal flats in North Frisia that are currently part of the UNESCO World Heritage “Wadden Sea”. |
| format | Article |
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| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2076-3263 |
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| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
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| spelling | doaj-art-4e798b8197de4ed6b3328a177035bffe2025-01-24T13:34:05ZengMDPI AGGeosciences2076-32632024-12-01151110.3390/geosciences15010001Medieval Overexploitation of Peat Triggered Large-Scale Drowning and Permanent Land Loss in Coastal North Frisia (Wadden Sea Region, Germany)Hanna Hadler0Antonia Reiß1Timo Willershäuser2Dennis Wilken3Ruth Blankenfeldt4Bente Majchczack5Stefanie Klooß6Ulf Ickerodt7Andreas Vött8Institute of Geography, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55099 Mainz, GermanyInstitute of Geography, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55099 Mainz, GermanyInstitute of Geography, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55099 Mainz, GermanyInstitute of Geosciences, Kiel University, 24118 Kiel, GermanyLeibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) Mainz, Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA), 24837 Schleswig, GermanyInstitute of Geosciences, Kiel University, 24118 Kiel, GermanyState Archaeology Department Schleswig-Holstein, 24837 Schleswig, GermanyState Archaeology Department Schleswig-Holstein, 24837 Schleswig, GermanyInstitute of Geography, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55099 Mainz, GermanyAlong the southern North Sea coast from the Netherlands to Denmark, human cultivation efforts have created a unique cultural landscape. Since the Middle Ages, these interactions between humans and natural forces have induced major coastal changes. In North Frisia (Germany), storm floods in 1362 AD and 1634 AD turned wide areas of embanked cultural land into tidal flats. Systematic geoarchaeological investigations between Nordstrand and Hallig Südfall comprise coring, trenching, sedimentary, geochemical and microfaunal palaeoenvironmental parameter analyses and radiocarbon dating. Together with geophysical prospection results and archaeological surveys, they give insights into the landscape’s development and causes for land losses. Results reveal that fens and bogs dominated from c. 800 BC to 1000 AD but are mostly missing in the stratigraphy. Instead, we found 12th to 14th cent. AD settlement remains directly on top of a pre-800 BC fossil marsh. This hiatus of c. 2000 years combined with local ‘Hufen’ settlements implies an extensive removal of peat during cultivation eventually resulting in the use of underlying marshland for agricultural purposes. Fifteenth cent. AD tidal flat deposits on top of the cultivated marsh prove that human impact lowered the ground surface below the mean high water of that time, clearly increasing the coastal vulnerability. We consider these intensive human–environment interactions as a decisive trigger for the massive loss of land and establishment of the tidal flats in North Frisia that are currently part of the UNESCO World Heritage “Wadden Sea”.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/15/1/1North FrisiaWadden Seamedieval land reclamationstorm surgesland losses |
| spellingShingle | Hanna Hadler Antonia Reiß Timo Willershäuser Dennis Wilken Ruth Blankenfeldt Bente Majchczack Stefanie Klooß Ulf Ickerodt Andreas Vött Medieval Overexploitation of Peat Triggered Large-Scale Drowning and Permanent Land Loss in Coastal North Frisia (Wadden Sea Region, Germany) Geosciences North Frisia Wadden Sea medieval land reclamation storm surges land losses |
| title | Medieval Overexploitation of Peat Triggered Large-Scale Drowning and Permanent Land Loss in Coastal North Frisia (Wadden Sea Region, Germany) |
| title_full | Medieval Overexploitation of Peat Triggered Large-Scale Drowning and Permanent Land Loss in Coastal North Frisia (Wadden Sea Region, Germany) |
| title_fullStr | Medieval Overexploitation of Peat Triggered Large-Scale Drowning and Permanent Land Loss in Coastal North Frisia (Wadden Sea Region, Germany) |
| title_full_unstemmed | Medieval Overexploitation of Peat Triggered Large-Scale Drowning and Permanent Land Loss in Coastal North Frisia (Wadden Sea Region, Germany) |
| title_short | Medieval Overexploitation of Peat Triggered Large-Scale Drowning and Permanent Land Loss in Coastal North Frisia (Wadden Sea Region, Germany) |
| title_sort | medieval overexploitation of peat triggered large scale drowning and permanent land loss in coastal north frisia wadden sea region germany |
| topic | North Frisia Wadden Sea medieval land reclamation storm surges land losses |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/15/1/1 |
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