Archaeological and multiproxy studies on the land use-history of the Southern Black-Forest

• Applicants: Dr. Andrea Bräuning; Professor Dr. Karl-Heinz Feger; Professor Dr. Manfred Rösch
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 255349580

For more than 100 years research on the use and settlement of montane regions has been carried out. Here as well as in mid-range mountains scientific methods, especially pollen-analysis have been applied within the last 30 years. In many areas the old paradigm of a settlement of mid-range mountains in medieval times has been questioned or refuted.The Black-Forest too was seen for a long time as a landscape adverse to settlement and therefore a late developed region. New research carried out in the Northern and Middle Black-Forest has proved a land-use in the iron-age or at least in pre-monastery times. In this project the human impact on the landscape of the Southern Black-Forest and the strategies of resource-use since the Neolithic are to be investigated using combined methods of archaeology and natural sciences in three different landscapes (High Black-Forest, western Hotzenwald, eastern Dinkelberg). Systematic surveys, LIDAR-scan-analysis, sondage excavations and GIS-based analysis together with combined pollen and geochemical analyses in lake sediment archives can provide a consistent picture of the development and use of the Southern Black-Forest. Hints on deforestation, change of forests through anthropogenic use, agriculture, pastoral economy and anthropogenic fires are to be mentioned in this context.Thus, research in this project follows the recent years' studies in archaeology and natural science focusing on mid-range mountains. However, due to the fact that different physiographic subunits are compared and the high-montane region is included the proposed work goes far beyond that research. Taking into account e. g. sediment archives from lakes at different altitudes will enable to identify qualitative and quantitative gradients of land-use along an altitudinal gradient.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Achim Brauer