This volume deals with the geographical evolution of the coastal areas adjacent to the North Sea, with a focus upon the last two thousand years. Although many articles are reworked in a fundamental way, most of them are the result of a conference which took place in 2010 at the University of Ghent (Belgium) and which was actually the third in a series of symposiums on the same broad theme. The first took place in 1958, and the second in 1978. Recognized specialists were invited to present their research in a variety of fields relating to the subject. The various disciplines in which the coastal plains are studied too often remain within their own borders, and so we have set out to thoroughly interweave them in the hope that this will spur greater interdisciplinary cooperation.
This collection of texts is intended to appeal not just to experts in historical geography, but to historians and scientists working in any field who wish to gain insights into the present 'state of play'. Detailed geological research about many areas provided new data and researchers gradually gained a better understanding of the close relationship between the processes of deposition, sea-level change, and land formation taking place across multiple regions. In the same time, historical and archaeological research also evolved. Most significantly, ideas regarding the chronology of human occupation have changed a lot. This scope of the research collected in this volume is important because it has increasingly become evident that land loss and gain were the results of regional factors, including and especially human activities. Moreover, it is now clear that humans devised survival strategies, and thus organized their activities in relation to the environment, on a regional basis, which means that the causes of local changes must have been both natural and socio-historical. It has now become clearer than ever that there is no single chronological scheme capable of explaining the coastal evolution across the entirety of the North Sea area.
Author(s): Erik Thoen, Guus J. Borger, Adriaan M. J. de Kraker, Tim Soens, Dries Tys, Lies Vervaet, Henk J. T. Weerts (eds.)
Series: Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area. CORN Publication Series, 13
Publisher: Brepols
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 440
City: Turnhout
List of contributors vii
List of figures viii
List of tables xii
1. The North Sea coastal plains over the last two millennia: landscapes or seascapes? A new collection of essays / Erik THOEN, Guus J. BORGER, Adriaan M. J. DE KRAKER, Tim SOENS, Dries TYS and Henk J. T. WEERTS 1
PART I SEASCAPES VERSUS LANDSCAPES? THE NATURAL CONTEXT FOR HUMAN SURVIVAL
2. History of research and state of the art of the Holocene depositional history of the Belgian coastal plain / Cecile BAETEMAN 11
3. The Holocene coastal deposits of Sussex: a re-evaluation / Martyn WALLER and Anthony LONG 31
4. Potential and use of archaeological and historical data for a reconstruction of the sea level curve of the last 3000 years in the coastal zone of the southern North Sea. Results of a case study / Sjoerd J. KLUIVING, Michel A. LASCARIS, Adriaan M. J. DE KRAKER, Hans RENES, Guus J. BORGER and Steven A. SOETENS 61
5. From nature to culture: landscape and settlement history of the North-Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany / Dirk MEIER 85
6. Natural and anthropogenic factors in the origin and evolution of the dune landscape on the islands of the south-west Netherlands / Anton M. M. VAN HAPEREN 111
7. Living in a dynamic landscape: the dune area on the island of Schouwen, province of Zeeland, during the late prehistory and early historical period / Bert VAN DER VALK and Frans BEEKMAN 127
8. Holocene sea-level change, sedimentation, coastal change and palaeogeography in the southern North Sea lowlands. A 2012 geological literature overview / Henk J. T. WEERTS 145
PART II LANDSCAPES VERSUS SEASCAPES? SOCIAL ORGANISATION AND CHANGING COASTAL LANDSCAPES
9. Dikes and other hydraulic engineering works from the Late Iron Age and Roman period on the coastal area between Dunkirk and the Danish Bight / Michel A. LASCARIS and Adriaan M. J. DE KRAKER 177
10. The medieval embankment of coastal Flanders in context / Dries TYS 199
11. Reclamations and submerged lands in the Ems River Estuary (900–1500) / Otto S. KNOTTNERUS 241
12. Monasteries and water management in the Frisian coastal plain. The reconstruction of landed property as a trigger for new research on the chronology of embankment and drainage / Johannes A. MOL 267
13. The origins of the Western Scheldt. Environmental transformation, storm surges and human agency in the Flemish coastal plain (1250–1600) / Tim SOENS 287
14. The evolution of the landscape and the social and political organisation of water management: the Po Valley in the Middle Ages (fifth to fourteenth centuries) / Michele CAMPOPIANO 313
15. Human impact on the coastal wetlands of Britain in the medieval period / Stephen RIPPON 333
16. Estuarine environments and resource exploitation in eastern Scotland c. 1125 to c. 1400. A comparative study of the Forth and Tay Estuaries / Richard ORAM 353
17. Storms, economics and environmental change in an English coastal wetland: the Thames Estuary c. 1250–1550 / James A. GALLOWAY 379
18. Clio defeating Neptune: a pyrrhic victory? Men and their influence on the evolution of coastal landscapes in the North Sea area / Erik THOEN 397
