@inproceedings{RaabRaabSchneideretal., author = {Raab, Alexandra and Raab, Thomas and Schneider, Anna and Hirsch, Florian and Takla, Melanie and Nicolay, Alexander and Bonhage, Alexander and M{\"u}ller, Frank and Heußner, Karl-Uwe and R{\"o}sler, Horst}, title = {Reconstructing anthropogenic landscape transformation in the surroundings of the ironwork Peitz (SE Brandenburg, Germany) - 16th to mid-19th centuries}, series = {4th International Landscape Archaeology Conference, Uppsala, 22nd - 25th August 2016}, booktitle = {4th International Landscape Archaeology Conference, Uppsala, 22nd - 25th August 2016}, publisher = {Department of archaeology and ancient history, Uppsala university,}, address = {Uppsala}, pages = {S. 152}, abstract = {Various sources provide information about land use history and landscape transformation. For a variety of reasons, the quality of information differs and is often discontinuous or incomplete. In this interdisciplinary study we take advantage of comprehensive archaeological data gathered by large-scale excavations that were necessary because of opencast lignite mining in Lusatia, Brandenburg, Germany. By using a GIS we integrate these archaeological findings with results from archival and literature studies, from historical maps, from landforms and soils as well as from analyses of shaded-relief maps derived from up-to-date LiDAR data. The long-term aim is to develop a palaeoenvironmental model and thus to reconstruct landscape changes caused by human activities. The focus of the study is the Peitz ironwork in SE Brandenburg, which was a large consumer of commodities for about 300 years. During the time it operated, extensive transformations are supposed to have affected the landscape in the vicinity because of wood consumption and especially charcoal production. Digital datasets about forested areas for different timespans reconstructed from historical maps were made available. In combination with dendrochronological dating of charred trees, the spatiotemporal dimension of charcoal kilns was determined. Also, sites of former bog iron ore mining could be identified. Moreover, the different sources contain further information about other forms of land uses such as agriculture, pastoralism and even viticulture. In conclusion we can highlight that the mosaic of past land use systems is different from the modern structure but that major changes in the forests have been retained.}, language = {en} } @misc{RaabBonhageSchneideretal., author = {Raab, Alexandra and Bonhage, Alexander and Schneider, Anna and Raab, Thomas and R{\"o}sler, Horst and Heußner, Karl-Uwe and Hirsch, Florian}, title = {Spatial distribution of relict charcoal hearths in the former royal forest district Tauer (SE Brandenburg, Germany)}, series = {Quaternary International}, volume = {Vol. 511}, journal = {Quaternary International}, issn = {1040-6182}, doi = {10.1016/j.quaint.2017.07.022}, pages = {153 -- 165}, abstract = {Historical charcoal production has long been an unconsidered type of forest utilization in lowland areas. The archaeological discovery of a large charcoal burning area in the forefield of the active opencast lignite mine J€anschwalde in SE Brandenburg (North German Lowlands) has highlighted the need for multidisciplinary research in the study of the dimensions of historical charcoal burning. The charcoal produced in our study area, the former royal forest district Tauer, provided energy for the nearby Peitz ironworks during its operation from the mid-16th to the mid-19th century. Here, we aimed to record the amount, size and distribution of relict charcoal hearths (RCHs) to examine their context with respect to the ironworks and to better understand the potential impacts on late Quaternary landscape change. The applied methods combined archaeological research with shaded-relief mapping of RCHs. To evaluate the detection success of RCHs in the shaded-relief maps (SRMs), we compared the results with the results from specific archaeological surveys and conventional forest site mapping. Furthermore, we analyzed our dataset with descriptive, comparable and spatial statistics. Additionally, dendrochronological dating of charcoal fragments from selected RCHs was used to investigate the temporal relationships among the RCHs. Approximately 6000 circular RCHs were manually digitally identified in the SRMs of the 109-km2 evaluable area. However, ground truthing showed that the shaded-relief maps could not completely capture all RCHs in our study area due to local conditions. At the regional scale, two focus areas with high RCH site densities were found. Statistical analysis revealed that the diameters of the RCHs range widely from 4 to 30.5 m. Spatial statistics were applied to the RCH diameters to aggregate areas with larger or smaller RCHs. At the small scale, no systematic arrangement of RCHs was obvious in the SRMs. Dendrochronological dating of selected RCHs lying close together could not detect significant spatiotemporal relationships or patterns. The dating results also showed that some areas have been preferentially used for charcoal production for over 300 years. Due to the homogeneity of the physiogeographical location factors, we assume that these factors are not superficially responsible for site selection. Instead, economic location factors and contemporary regulations are more likely responsible for the distribution of RCHs.}, language = {en} } @misc{RaabTaklaNicolayetal., author = {Raab, Alexandra and Takla, Melanie and Nicolay, Alexander and Schneider, Anna and R{\"o}sler, Horst and Heußner, Karl-Uwe and B{\"o}nisch, Eberhard}, title = {Pre-industrial charcoal production in Lower Lusatia (Brandenburg, Germany): Detection and evaluation of a large charcoal-burning field by combining archaeological studies, GIS-based analyses of shaded-relief maps and dendrochronological age determination}, series = {Quaternary International}, volume = {Vol. 367}, journal = {Quaternary International}, doi = {10.1016/j.quaint.2014.09.041}, pages = {111 -- 122}, abstract = {In pre-industrial times, charcoal burning was a common source of energy across Europe. Charcoal production and its related consequences for the upland environment are well known due to historical and palaeoenvironmental research. In recent years, awareness has grown regarding the use of woods in the lowlands for charcoal production. In the last 20 years, a large charcoal-burning field in Lower Lusatia (Brandenburg, North German Lowlands) was discovered by systematic archaeological excavations of the opencast mine of J{\"a}nschwalde. However, the excavations are limited to the mine, which only covers a portion of the J{\"a}nschwalder Heide and the surrounding forests. In this paper, we present the results of our study regarding the spatial extension and timing of charcoal production in the J{\"a}nschwalder Heide and its surrounding areas. We applied a combined approach using archaeological research results, GIS-analyses of shaded-relief maps (SRMs) and tree-ring dating of selected charcoal kiln remains. Approximately 900 excavated charcoal kiln ground plans were analysed, which provided a solid data basis for our GIS analyses. For an extensive evaluation, we enlarged our study area beyond the limits of the lignite mine. We identified and digitised the remains of the charcoal kilns by creating SRMs from digital elevation models (DEMs) that were based on high-resolution airborne laser scanning data (ALS). The data from the excavated and digitised charcoal kiln remains were analysed in terms of their sizes and spatial distributions. In addition, the dendrochronological ages of 16 selected charcoal kiln remains were determined. This study shows that charcoal production was more extensive than initially proven by archaeological excavations. The remains of more than 5000 charcoal kilns were detected on the SRMs across an area that was twice as large as the excavated charcoal-burning field. In the J{\"a}nschwalder Heide, considerably more charcoal kiln relicts exist compared with the surrounding communal areas. Furthermore, the charcoal kiln remains in the J{\"a}nschwalder Heide have larger diameters, suggesting large-scale charcoal production for supplying energy to the nearby ironworks at Peitz. However, the charcoal production on the communal land was most likely for local crafts. The ages of the charcoal kiln remains indicated that charcoal production occurred between the 17th and 19th centuries, corresponding with the main period of charcoal burning. Overall, our study suggested that charcoal production sites are underestimated in the modern landscapes of the North German Lowlands.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{RaabSchneiderBonhageetal., author = {Raab, Alexandra and Schneider, Anna and Bonhage, Alexander and Takla, Melanie and Hirsch, Florian and M{\"u}ller, Frank and R{\"o}sler, Horst and Heußner, Karl-Uwe}, title = {Spatial analysis of charcoal kiln remains in the former royal forest district Tauer (Lower Lusatia, North German Lowlands)}, series = {European Geosciences Union, General Assembly 2016, Vienna, Austria}, booktitle = {European Geosciences Union, General Assembly 2016, Vienna, Austria}, publisher = {European Geophysical Society}, address = {Katlenburg-Lindau}, abstract = {Archaeological excavations have revealed more than thousand charcoal kiln remains (CKRs) in the prefield of the active opencast lignite mine J{\"a}nschwalde, situated about 150 km SE of Berlin (SE Brandenburg, Germany). The charcoal was mainly produced for the ironwork Peitz nearby, which operated from the 16th to the mid-19th centuries. In a first approach, to estimate the dimension of the charcoal production, CKRs were mapped on shaded-relief maps (SRMs) derived from high-resolution LiDAR data (Raab et al. 2015). Subsequently, for a selected test area, identified CKRs on the SRMs were compared with archaeologically excavated CKRs in the field. This survey showed a considerably number of falsely detected sites. Therefore, the data was critically re-evaluated using additional relief visualisations. Further, we extended the CKR mapping to areas which are not archaeologically investigated. The study area, the former royal forest district Tauer, consists of two separate areas: the Tauersche Heide (c. 96 km2 area) N of Peitz and the area J{\"a}nschwalde (c. 32 km2 area) NE of Peitz. The study area is characterized by a flat topography. Different former and current anthropogenic uses (e.g., military training, solar power plant, forestry measures) have affected the study area, resulting in extensive disturbances of the terrain surface. The revised CKR abundance in the study area J{\"a}nschwalde was considerably smaller than the numbers produced by our first approach. Further, the CKR mapping revealed, that a total record of the CKRs is not possible for various reasons. Despite these limitations, a solid database can be provided for a much larger area than before. Basic statistic parameters of the CKR diameters and all comparative statistical tests were calculated using SPSS. To detect underlying spatial relationships in the CKR site distribution, we applied the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic, a method to test for local spatial autocorrelation between neighbouring sites. The test is available as part of the ArcGis 10.1 spatial statistics toolbox. The outcomes are discussed in consideration of our archaeological, archival and dendrochronological research results.}, language = {en} } @misc{HeinrichBalanzateguiBensetal., author = {Heinrich, Ingo and Balanzategui, Daniel and Bens, Oliver and Blasch, Gerald and Blume, Theresa and B{\"o}ttcher, Falk and Borg, Erik and Brademann, Brian and Brauer, Achim and Conrad, Christopher and Dietze, Elisabeth and Dr{\"a}ger, Nadine and Fiener, Peter and Gerke, Horst H. and G{\"u}ntner, Andreas and Heine, Iris and Helle, Gerhard and Herbrich, Marcus and Harfenmeister, Katharina and Heußner, Karl-Uwe and Hohmann, Christian and Itzerott, Sibylle and Jurasinski, Gerald and Kaiser, Knut and Kappler, Christoph and Koebsch, Franziska and Liebner, Susanne and Lischeid, Gunnar and Merz, Bruno and Missling, Klaus Dieter and Morgner, Markus and Pinkerneil, Sylvia and Plessen, Birgit and Raab, Thomas and Ruhtz, Thomas and Sachs, Torsten and Sommer, Michael and Spengler, Daniel and Stender, Vivien and St{\"u}ve, Peter and Wilken, Florian}, title = {Interdisciplinary Geo-ecological Research across Time Scales in the Northeast German Lowland Observatory (TERENO-NE)}, series = {Vadose Zone Journal}, volume = {17}, journal = {Vadose Zone Journal}, number = {1}, issn = {1539-1663}, doi = {10.2136/vzj2018.06.0116}, pages = {1 -- 25}, language = {en} } @article{LuckeAlSaadSchmidtetal., author = {Lucke, Bernhard and Al-Saad, Ziad and Schmidt, Michael and B{\"a}umler, Rupert and Lorenz, S.-O. and Udluft, P. and Heußner, Karl-Uwe and Walker, B.}, title = {Soils and Land Use in the Decapolis Region (Northern Jordan). Implications for Landscape Development and the Impact of Climate Change}, language = {en} }