Cultural Landscape Change from Late Neolithic to Late Middle Ages in Northern Westphalia. Interplay between the Natural Environment and the Anthropogenic Archaeological Remains

Abstract

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.