Late glacial and holocene environmental changes in the Hegau Region, Southwest Germany

Abstract

Sedimentological and palaeoecological investigations have been carried out to study the impact of early farming activity on the landscape evolution, next to a settlement (dated to ~7250 a BP cal) discovered in 1984 on the footslopes of the ‘Hohentwiel’ volcano in the Hegau region, SW Germany. The site is surrounded by fens, which are considered to be possible sediment traps and, as such, constitute suitable geoarchives for landscape change. Sediment cores were investigated from four different locations: the settlement site ‘Hilzingen Forsterbahn’ (470 m a.s.l.), the fens ‘Hilzinger Ried’ and ‘Heiligenwies’ in the vicinity of the settlement site, and the alluvial and fen deposits ‘Oberbiber’ 5 km distant. Our study reveals that the action of early neolithic farmers did not lead to significant colluvial deposition in the vicinity of the settlement. During the middle neolithic cultural stages (Hinkelstein and Großgartach), there was evidence of local colluvial sedimentation (settlement vicinity) and increasing minerogenic influx in the fen Heiligenwies. The fen Hilzinger Ried, however, was without any neolithic sedimentation. Only since the Bronze age, can agriculture be considered to have exerted a substantial morphogenetic effect on the landscape, which was documented in the vicinity of the settlement site and also in the two fens. The location Oberbiber, which lies further away, reflected its own fluvial development of a larger alluvial system (80 km2).