MARINE GEOLOGY & GLACIOLOGY
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TERRSTRIAL GEOLOGY, CULTURAL LANDSCAPE DEVELOPMENT, OVERVIEW |
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Research group |
| Burial mounds at Boddum | |
Introduction
The research group focuses on the origin and long-term development of the Danish cultural landscape. Introduced to Denmark about 4000 years BC pastoral and arable farming were the dominant agents in the transformation from complete forest coverage to a landscape with less than 4% woodland by AD 1800 (today 11% woodland).
While analysis of pollen in lake sediments is the preferred method extensive collaboration exists with groups studying erosional signals in lakes sediments and lake responses to agricultural disturbances. Close collaboration with other landscape research disciplines such as landscape archaeologists, historians, pedologists, and agronomists is another characteristic of the cultural landscape group.
Recent efforts concentrate on quantitative relations between pollen, landscape and archaeological data. One example of such studies is a phd-project in progress aiming at quantifying the relationship between pollen in sediments of medium-sized lakes and land-cover in the surrounding landscapes. Provided this work is successful the result will allow past land-cover / land-use to be quantified from fossil pollen in lake sediments. Other studies focus on the relation between sedimentary pollen and archaeological, historical and place-name data aiming at evaluating the representativity of such data and their advantages and biases in landscape reconstructions.
Scenery from Thy shaped by the interaction through millennia between Man and Nature
Other web sites
Links to some research projects in which the cultural landscape group participates:
Edited by
J. Peter Rasmussen -
per@geus.dk
Henrik J. Granat -
hjg@geus.dk
Feel free to send e-mail for more information.
