Chapter 3 People and Communities: Social Landscapes

Landscape and interaction (EPCL) network, each way leading to The previous chapter explored the particular patterns of landscape. This European landscape in terms of people’s diversity ranges from the reclamation of land interaction with the natural world – the from the sea in Albersdorf to the upland human response to the physical landscape. pastoral systems of Bowland and Paneveggio; This chapter moves on to consider people’s from the Estonian forests and the long- interaction with each other and to discuss established farmland of Práchensko to the the social processes that shaped the creation clearance of fields in Untamala and the and development of our cultural landscape. woodland management and industry of the Its stories will show some of the ways in Spessart; from the draining of the Irish which our predecessors have interacted with midlands to fertilising the soils with seaweed one another and how these social in Bjäre. relationships and actions remain visible today Since ancient times, people living on the in the environment, as raw material for the Bjäre peninsula have earned their main construction of our mental Landscapes. income from stock-farming combined with coastal activities. Cultivation was also part of There is a very wide range of ways in making a living, of course, but only on a small which social processes can be seen in the scale because the soil on the peninsula is landscape. This short chapter can only be poor. However, the tradition of using very selective, and we have chosen to look seaweed to fertilise the meagre soil became mainly at just fi ve general themes, which are established and although nobody really agriculture, ritual and religion, power and knows when or how it started, there are status, industry and trade. The results of such stories told about it. activities – food production, industry, and trade, some of which date back thousands of ‘Once upon a time, quite some time ago, years – are recognisable throughout the a young man went down to the shore to get European landscape and, in apparent rid of all the seaweed that had been washed contradiction, point at one and the same up by the waves in the early spring storms. time both to past cultural diversity and to The seaweed was covering his boat as well current shared cultural landscape. as the shore. He didn’t know where to put it Part 11- Chapter 3 all at first, but then he decided to heap it up in a small field close by. The crops didn’t Sustenance and nourishment grow very well in this field in any case, so it The production of food is a basic human couldn’t do any harm. When the growing requirement and, consequently, agricultural season began the man went out to inspect landscapes (as opposed to industrial, ritual or his crops, and as he came to the little field by recreational landscapes) often form the the shore he was amazed to find that they working backdrop for daily life in the stood higher here than even in his good fields. countryside. This background can seem so This field had always produced a meagre basic and necessary, so natural, that it is not return, and the sight he was confronted with always appreciated how it depends on now seemed almost magical. How had this cultural traditions that extend back over happened he thought to himself, and Pathways to Europe’s Landscape many millennia. suddenly he remembered the seaweed that he had put there in early springtime. Of Just as there is no single European course, the seaweed must have fertilised the landscape as a whole, so there is no single earth somehow. Soon people living in the European agricultural landscape. The nearby farmsteads came to see the wonder diversity of ways in which people have as the tale of the nourishing seaweed spread worked the land is encapsulated within our all over the peninsula, and beyond’. European Pathways to the Cultural landscape

47 An old cattle road leading down to the sea, Bjäre

even the case through the Agricultural Shifts, The coast, Bjäre which dramatically changed the overall land­ owning system, moving farms out of villages and allocating them their own fields, which is the pattern that persists today. The villages still own much of the coastal zone, common- land used mainly for grazing, and it is still possible to see farmers harvesting seaweed in the spring, although artificial pesticides are more commonly used. For several decades, large parts of the coastal zone of the Bjäre peninsula have been classified as a protected nature area because of the abundance of herbs and plants growing there. This vegetation is in fact typical for grassland Whatever the origins of this custom, it managed by grazing, which makes it a made seaweed very valuable. Quarrels soon cultural landscape with roots that perhaps arose between farmsteads and villages all stretch back even into the prehistoric period. around the peninsula about who had the In Sweden there is a law preventing right to harvest it. In the end, rules and laws development and exploitation close to all were made to regulate the use of seaweed. water bodies: the sea, rivers and lakes. The The rules were very strict and if you broke main reason is said to be democratic – you them punishment was hard. For example, can’t own water or a beach, and everyone besides being heavily fined, you could also be has a right to use these areas. The law may Antennaria Diocica and Viola forced to sit in the front row at Sunday Mass even have roots in the old common-land Canina, two typical species in with a bundle of seaweed in your hands. No system. However, this law has not been managed grassland, Bjäre wonder then, that people were quite strictly adhered to and the coastline of the obedient in following the regulations. Bjäre peninsula is actually one of the longest These regulations about using seaweed stretches of accessible continuously protected have left quite an impact on the cultural coastlines in Sweden. We therefore have to landscape of the Bjäre coastal zone. Most thank the poor farmers of Bjäre and their Part 11- Chapter 3 farmers in the area owned their own piece of use of seaweed for their part in the shaping land, and in fact the aristocracy and the and conservation of today’s coastal Crown had very little interest in the landscape. peninsula. But people also shared the This Swedish story shows the important village’s common land for seaweed gathering part played by communities and their as well as summer grazing. In today’s regulations in sharing the use of land and of landscape, traces can be seen of these important but scarce resources. Such sets of arrangements through the many small roads rules can be difficult to change, and the leading from the villages towards the sea. landscape management that they support Many of them are surviving relicts of old may thus be very long-lived, lasting centuries cattle-roads that have stayed in use, and if not thousands of years. today they often lead to areas with In the European context, it is possible to Pathways to Europe’s Landscape summerhouses. The coastline is shared between villages, and there is a pattern on point to many agricultural landscapes that the peninsula of land associated with each have been in use for thousands of years. In village extending down to the shoreline. parts of the Forest of Bowland and Lune Valley, for example, disused Iron Age field As the sea provided seaweed and other systems on the upland moors can be traced treasures (mainly shipwrecks – about which down the hillsides where they meet the there is also a set of regulations) the improved agricultural land and continue in common land along the coastline was well the line of more recent boundaries. Here is protected through historical times. This was

48 19th-century forests of the Spessart in a landscape where the boundaries and southern Germany were also planted over subdivisions established by the area’s earlier fields, whose cultivation terraces can prehistoric inhabitants still find a use today be found in areas where trees have been (or at least successive generations have not felled. felt the need to remove them). This picture of the persistence of ancient agricultural Whilst the long time depth of many systems is repeated across Europe: in our landscapes is a defining European network alone we can see the survival and characteristic, so too is an underlying dynamic continued use of prehistoric fields in Ireland, of change. The variable speed of landscape of medieval land reclamation and flood transformation across Europe, resulting from protection banks in Dithmarschen, or long- climatic, technological or social change, is a established high alpine hay meadows in further characteristic. It is possible to point Paneveggio, or the intricate shared meadow to different periods and areas that witnessed irrigation systems of valleys in the Spessart. significant rates of change, and to others where human actions have remained largely More often than not, however, what unchanged and have become expressed in survives is not complete ancient landscapes ‘stable’ landscapes. in their entirety, but fragments of systems contained within later layers of the For example, between the 16th and 18th landscape. These fragments can be difficult centuries the Spessart was considered an to recognise, or they may only be present as affluent region, largely through the wealth part of the general framework – the long- brought to the area by glassmaking. This lasting ‘skeleton’ of the landscape, things such industry, and the trade routes which crossed as ancient tracks and roads, major the region, supported buildings and other administrative and territorial divisions, or expressions of wealth that remain visible in protective banks and dykes. the modern landscape. Today, however, the image of the Spessart, and by implication its All the EPCL project areas contain past, is one of marginal land and poverty. A evidence for such historic or prehistoric principal reason for this lies in the move away layers – or ‘time depth’, the visible and from a woodland and forest economy recognisable traces of past activity that brought about by the changes in industry and remain in the landscape. Visible aspects transport during the 19th century. usually extend back at least as far as the medieval period, and occasionally earlier. The Historic Landscape Characterisation Such time depth in the countryside may arise study of Lancashire (see Chapter 5) provides from historic features that are still being a further graphic illustration of the temporal used, perhaps in modified ways, or from and spatial variations of landscape change. those which no longer have a use, but which Here, mapping can be created which shows have been preserved as ‘relict’ features. the shifting focus of landscape change Amongst these may number individual reflected in the 16th to early 19th-centuries, monuments, such as the Iron Age hillforts of with the clearance of regenerated woodland, Part 11- Chapter 3 Southern Bohemia, or extensive relict field the improvement of upland moor and some systems that have gone out of use and been lowland moss, and of agricultural replaced by upland gazing, for example, or improvements and further mossland managed woodland. reclamation from the late 19th century to the present day. The woodlands of the Hallandsåsen in Sweden, for example, contain the remains of The impact of mechanisation, prehistoric fields that appear to have been industrialisation and population change on made at a time of land shortage but which agricultural landscapes during the 19th and were abandoned as falling sea levels created 20th centuries is a consistent theme in nearly better farmland on the plains. The higher every one of the EPCL areas. It is a theme land therefore reverted to woodland and brought about not just by the fact that these wood pasture for cattle. Southern Sweden are the centuries of our most recent past, Pathways to Europe’s Landscape has many such examples of prehistoric fields but also by the speed of change and the within ancient woods. Examples can also be scale of impact involved. Here we offer two seen in our second Swedish project in Bjäre. stories from within our project that illustrate Perhaps these originated when felling and the temporal and spatial variations resulting burning opened gaps in the woods that from human actions in the cultural landscape: could be farmed for a while, benefiting from first from Vakka-Suomi region in Finland, and the fertilising effect of the clearance. The then from North Wales.

49 The areas of cultivation and settlement remained the same throughout the Iron Age, and many fields, once cleared, remained in use for almost two thousand years. Population growth began to increase during the medieval period (12th – 16th centuries), leading to a notable expansion of settlement into previously marginal areas. At this time, a highly conservative cadastral system was in use in the Vakka-Suomi region. This differed significantly from that practised in other areas of Finland, where land was often owned in common by a community, each family farming a number of small parcels, or allocations, shared out by agreement, and often not separately enclosed but left ‘open’. In the Vakka-Suomi area, however, the land was divided into several landowning units, and Cairn surrounded The landscape of Vakka-Suomi in Finland this system of ownership in ‘severalty’ meant by a field, Untamala holds up a mirror to agricultural change, that each landowner had his own land, illuminating the processes of agricultural usually separately fenced into small fields. production and their physical expression. By The landowners argued against later around 200 BC, and after several thousand government pressure to adopt the system years of light, non-intensive use of woodlands used elsewhere in the country, saying that the for gathering plants and firewood, changes fields in the area were too small and stony were taking place that would eventually lead for division. to the substantial alteration of that woodland environment. The most prominent factors During the 16th century, the detrimental were the arrival of more settled communities effects of a climatic downturn (the so-called and the impact of agriculture, particularly ‘little Ice Age’), exacerbated by war against pastoral farming. Russia, caused several years of crop failure. The resulting decline left permanent marks Agricultural production was at first minor on the landscape of the area: the population and small–scale, farming only supplementing fell, old farmsteads were abandoned and the a living largely made through hunting and area of cultivated land decreased enormously, fishing. But small pastures for cattle were only again reaching its former medieval cleared of trees, and cultivation began to extent in the 19th century. take hold. The link between animal husbandry and the growing of produce was Before then, however, in the 18th century strong. Cattle produced fertiliser for the there had been a general redistribution of fields, and settlements were sited so that land to increase efficiency. This had a Part 11- Chapter 3 they had easy access to all the types of land significant impact upon our landscape. The required, especially woodland, grazing land changes were not fast, but from a structural and arable fields. The first two at least were point of view they were remarkable. often shared with other communities, which Amongst the main changes was the dispersal affected the location of farmsteads and of settlement so that new farms were built villages, territorial boundaries and trackway close to their fields, not at a distance in systems. village or hamlet groups as had been the case since the Iron Age. The time of villages The earliest cultivation techniques and hamlets with houses lying in close witnessed in the area are typically those proximity to each other had passed by. associated with slash-and-burn agriculture, but there are also structures that are The population grew throughout the 19th interpreted as field walls of the early Roman century, but Finland’s Great Hunger of 1866­ Pathways to Europe’s Landscape Iron Age (1st to 3rd centuries AD). By the 68 left fifteen percent of the country’s beginning of the Viking Iron Age (9th – 11th citizens dead. Although largely due to bad centuries AD) the mixed pastoral system had weather, the crops failure was blamed on old- been fully adopted as the principal source of fashioned agricultural practices. These were livelihood throughout the area. The patchy still dependent on fertiliser produced by mixture of small, stony arable and pastoral cattle, and therefore large areas of land fields and woodland gave the landscape a needed to be kept as pasture or meadow. highly distinctive appearance and a certain After the Hunger, there was a drive to kind of rhythm. increase the area of land under cultivation,

50 which included the draining of lakes and The great change in the landscape of the swamps. By the end of the 19th century, 18th to 20th centuries can be seen therefore, the landscape was much more elsewhere in Europe. For example, land was open than it is today, with the whole area re-organised throughout Sweden, as in Bjäre being used as intensively as possible for where whole villages were shifted in the 19th example, if land was unsuitable for cultivation century to create a dispersed settlement then cattle would graze it. The result was a pattern. Similarly, in 18th and 19th century landscape without any wilderness in the England, Acts of Parliament were necessary vicinity of settled areas. to break the complex sets of rules regarding By 1900 the availability of cheap, rights and ownership that could not be industrially produced animal feed caused a changed by any other means. These Acts dramatic decrease in the area of traditional allowed the large open fields shared by all meadows. Many of the small stony fields the farmers to be divided into separate fields were cleared of stones and the previously distributed amongst private landowners. The uncultivated ‘field islands’ were ploughed. The new fields have bequeathed to our landscape small, intimate features of the landscape their neat patterns of stone walls and started to disappear and the development hedgerows, while in some areas the open towards a landscape of few features began, a fields beneath them have left us large areas process still continuing. This was aided by of ridge and furrow (similar to the Danish modern intensive cultivation techniques, and ‘high-backed long-acres’ mentioned in the great population movement from the Chapter 1) as testimony to the earlier ways countryside to the towns that Finland of organising rural society. experienced in the late 20th century. Now, Not all of the great recent changes the cattle are kept inside, the old meadows concern farming. Our next story describes and pastures are wastelands and signs of landscape history in North Wales, where the human activity in the Vakka-Suomi region are landscape was very distinctly shaped by the diminishing. Thus the last hundred years action of communities working together to have seen greater changes to the cultural exploit the land for both agricultural and landscape than the thousands of years since industrial purposes. Some of these actions the revolution brought about when the are very old, but others tell us stories about prehistoric hunter-gatherer society changed more recent changes in the 18th and 19th into one based on agriculture. centuries, caused by tremendous economic and social pressures that still shape our present.

Boulders that survived 20th century improvements, Untamala Part 11- Chapter 3 Pathways to Europe’s Landscape

51 In Arfon, by the early 18th century, gangs the earlyby century, 18th Arfon, In Some settlement patterns to are believed Parliament that legally dismantled individual individual dismantled legally that Parliament farming rights a and allowed to these lands large land use. landowners to rationalise few of quarrymen starting were already to exploiting landscape by the transform deposits of slate. next By the middle of the and century deep pits were being excavated, slate quarrying led to a particularly characteristic industrial landscape of waste pumping and inclines, tramways heaps, houses and enormous retaining bastions. One distinctive form of settlement arising cottage within a small from this is the small or itself either by ‘parc’, enclosure or regular with neighbours. the These reflect opportunities work for by and income created the slate industry from the late 18th century onwards. represent squatter encroachment from the on a result of encroachment 1760s onward, clusterscommon land by of landless men’s such as those at houses (tai moel), and Carmel. Waunfawr Rhostryfan, In many instances the original vernacular dwellings of the late 18th and early 19th centuries in with later structures.survive,mixed In the Waunfawr, such as at some cases, disorderly settlement created at this early 52 In other places, however, the agricultural however, In other places, The area is particularly noteworthy for The social activities of people over over of people activities The social landscape that we see today is the product landscape that we see today is the product about 1775 to from of a more recent period, mainly created as the result of about 1850, and enclosure of common land improvement such as largeby estates, privately-owned and Glynllifon. Vaynol generally This was Acts of carried out with the help of the demonstrably prehistoric originthe demonstrably of many slopes. on sea-facing of the distinctive fields here were firstMany fields still in use cleared two thousand years more than and improved ago. Visible remains of amongst them are marked what by settlements, their farmers’ archaeologists call hut circles and enclosures. Prehistoric and associated field settlement on the systems are perhaps most notable the hill of Mynydd enclosed slopes below stone-built often characterised by Tryfan, curvilinear or irregular usually circular, walls, in pattern. There are also enclosures of late with prehistoric and Romano-British date, out from them. fields radiating These well- preserveda very can give sites and walls the landscape good impression of how than two thousand more would have looked years ago. thousands of years, living in and exploiting living in and exploiting of years,thousands given risehave very to a the landscape, Arfon. diverse size landscape in The different the types of buildings of fields,and shape by the spoil heaps left and settlements, quarryingroads and working and slate, together contribute significantly to railways and appearance. character the landscape’s They tell us stories the landscape about how has evolved. Arfon Arfon Arfon Arfon Parc settlement, Arfon Arfon settlement, Parc Glynllifon private Glynllifon estate, Prehistoric field systems,

Part 11- Chapter 3 Pathways to Europe’s Landscape date can still be seen like a ghost within the modern pattern of late 19th-century ribbon development. Houses in other areas, such as on Moel Tryfan, are later. Most of the present pattern of enclosure was established between the 1860s and 1888, as the tenants and smallholders were increasingly allowed to buy their land for nominal sums and as many smallholdings were sold as building lots. This created the present distinctive landscape of upland Arfon, in which vernacular cottages stand alongside terraces of small houses, clustered around the large Non-Conformist Protestant chapels that are typical of mining communities everywhere in Britain. Agricultural landscapes are seldom totally separated from landscapes of industry, ritual, recreation or authority. As we have already seen, the smallholdings of the Arfon in North linking the 21st century with prehistory. Pavel Pavel’s replica Wales sit in a landscape of slate quarries, Many of these monuments survive in an Stonehenge trilithon in non-conformist chapels and aristocratic anachronistic landscape, divorced from Strakonice, South Bohemia enclosure fields. We will see later that the contemporary features, while others are in fishponds of Southern Bohemia, created to surroundings that seem to echo the past. satisfy Christian religious demands, also A large proportion of the stone rows of formed part of the defences of medieval Carnac, France, and the megalithic tombs in castles and lie adjacent to the spoil heaps of the Albersdorf area of Germany, for example, a gold panning industry stretching back to the still survive, and in England numerous Iron Age. Seventeenth century gentry houses barrows that pay reference to Stonehenge which had become the focus points of are visible in the wider landscape along with former ‘vaccaries’ still survive in Bowland in the Avenue, the Stonehenge Cursus and Lancashire in an area of former Royal hunting nearby Woodhenge. The importance forest, dotted with 19th century limekilns. attached to such spiritual monuments of the Tracts of agricultural land in the Spessart are past is reflected in the provision of legal adjacent to the castles of the aristocracy, with protection or designation, such as World their associated hunting parks, but are also Heritage Sites. Value may also be expressed intermingled with the remains of 16th­ in other ways even through modern attempts century glass-making and charcoal-burning. to recreate such ritual monuments, this includes the construction of new stone It is to these other themes that we circles, whilst in Strakonice, South Bohemia a now turn.

replica Stonehenge trilithon was erected in Part 11- Chapter 3 the 1990s by Pavel Pavel, a Czech engineer Spiritual perceptions and and Town Clerk of Strakonice. manifestations Not all the connections between landscape and spirituality are necessarily so The links between landscape and religion overt, especially to those living in a largely are often instantly recognisable: the strong secular 21st century. Land owned by the focal points provided by spiritual monuments, Church, for example, may show very little whether Bronze Age burial mounds in Bjäre differentiation from that held by the other or the spires and towers of medieval and major landholders of civic society. Of course Baroque churches in the Trentino, are secular and church government share enduring and central landmarks. considerable overlap and on occasion are Along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe one and the same, expressed for example Pathways to Europe’s Landscape from Portugal to Scandinavia are numerous through administrative boundaries from the megalithic monuments that stand testament scale of Tullamore township (Ireland) up to to the abilities of the communities that the principalities of the archbishops of Mainz shaped the landscape between the 5th and and Würzburg. It follows that the presence 2nd millennia BC. The enigmatic passage and of boundaries and units of ecclesiastical chambered graves, stone circles, standing administration serves both to create and to stones and stone rows provide examples of perpetuate frameworks for the organisation time-depth in the modern landscape, directly of society (civic and secular) that may be

53 reflected in landscape terms. To what their long way to the Frankfurt trade fairs, to degree, for example, does the English parish protect the convoys with their valuable goods, reflect a level of self-sufficiency in which the on their passage through the Spessart. unit was anticipated to fulfil the local The two clerical Lords of Mainz and population’s woodland, agricultural land and Würzburg were not always on good terms other resource needs? with one another. Since the bishops were not The villages of Bischbrunn and only clerics but also worldly sovereigns, they Rodenbach in the Spessart illustrate just were intent on upholding and extending their some of the influence that the Christian influence and wealth. So the Archbishop of Church has had upon the landscape – both Würzburg founded a second village, in terms of the Church as a major landowner Rodenbach, just a stone’s throw from and of the influence of non-secular Bischbrunn. Because the border was boundaries. disputed for so long, a no-man’s-land Bischbrunn was founded as a developed, either side of the ‘Trieb’ drove- ‘Jagdhelferort’ village, meaning its inhabitants road, and many villagers built their homes had to work for the noble hunting parties as and stables along this path in order to assistants and beaters. It was, however, not escape taxation from either bishop. A only hunting that promoted the settlement between the bishops in the 18th establishment of the village, but also the century established a border commission that position of a strategically important crossing surveyed every inch of the boundary and of several long-distance roads. The border ended the tax haven. Soon after the between the principalities of the Napoleonic Wars, the clerical principalities archbishoprics of Mainz and Würzburg also were abolished and both villages came under passed the site, and close to Bischbrunn a the rule of the Bavarian king. Now, the two gate that served as the customs and escort villages are merged into one community. office on the old country roads marks the The direct control of land by the Church A wayside shrine at Neustadt, border. From here, riders of the Archbishop of and its spiritual antecedents forms one Spessart Mainz accompanied travelling merchants on influence on cultural landscapes. Another is the indirect control that religion and spiritual belief may have on ideas. Take, for example, the fishponds of Southern Bohemia – here is a human-made landscape created in part by Christian requirements for fish at certain times of the year, but prompted also by the aristocratic urge to display status through conspicuous expenditure and consumption. Tracts of water, such as that at Svarcenberk in the Trebon basin, were used for occasional seasonal hunting throughout Part 11- Chapter 3 prehistory. But in the 14th century AD, a new and now typical element of the South Bohemian landscape made an appearance. This was the fishpond, an artificial lake supported by ingenious dykes, races, overflows and outlets. The ponds were required for adherence to the Church’s requirement to eat only fish during Lent, introduced to the area by a military order of German monks. These monastic knights brought to Bohemia the practice of breeding fresh-water fish, mainly carp, in artificial ponds. The practice quickly Pathways to Europe’s Landscape spread becoming fully established by the second half of the century, and by the 15th and 16th centuries hundreds of large new reservoirs had been created under lordly patronage. Many of these stretches of water were constructed on the sites of former lakes, pools and wetlands, which had been in use since the prehistoric period, and many of

54 which continue in use in the present day. religious beliefs, the traces of their ritual This long historical tradition is particularly activities, and even whether something is the apparent in the Northern Práchensko region. product of religion or not. In the case of the Here, a splendid mosaic of fishponds Irish midlands, for example, where the characterises the landscape around the town famous Dowris hoard of Bronze Age of Blatná, where the oldest ponds were metalwork testifies to unknown beliefs and probably constructed around the medieval motivations, the landscape that we think was castle as part of its defensive moats. The probably itself a fundamental feature of past establishment of the fishpond network is worship has changed beyond all recognition. dated to the second half of the 15th century, The Dowris hoard was discovered near when Zdenek Lev of Rozmitál, the owner of Birr in the Irish south midlands, in low-lying, medieval Blatná, agreed with other gently undulating terrain on the east side of landholders to extensive ground changes, the Shannon Basin and south of the River resulting in a complex piscatorial landscape. Brosna. This area has just two small villages The largest of many new fishponds in the and scattered farms and large estates area was the of ‘Labut’ (Swan) pond, which dominate the modern settlement pattern. was constructed between 1492 and 1503 But in the Late Bronze Age (1000-800 BC) and extends over 109 hectares, holding 1.5 this was an area of extensive wetlands along million cubic metres of water. the River Shannon, and peat formation was The pattern of ponds around Blatná still still only beginning to encroach on the reflects the complex medieval system of carp margins of the enormous Lough Boora that production. There are small ponds for had been the legacy of the retreating ice. hatching fish, ponds for breeding, large The hoard was deposited at the edge of reservoirs for adult carp of full trade weight, smaller lake (Greater Lough Coura). By the and special cellular ponds for over-wintering 19th century AD this lake had dried out or fish. The whole system is linked together by been drained, and only two small areas of artificial and natural creeks, small rivers and open water survived (Paddock Lough and regulating channels. The extent of water has Lough Coura), but it was still open water decreased slightly since the medieval period, when the first objects were deposited here in but the fishponds of the Blatná region remain the Bronze Age. a unique element of the Czech cultural The hoard is said to have been found in landscape. the summer of 1825, in an area now known Occasionally the chronological distance locally as Dowris (or Durrus), by a certain between our modern world and that of our Edward Hennessy, as he and a friend dug out prehistoric predecessors is so great that we potatoes in a place called ‘Dereens’ between have little frame of reference for their Paddock Lough and Lough Coura. The land

Map of the Blatná area

showing the extensive Part 11- Chapter 3 network of fishponds, Práchensko Pathways to Europe’s Landscape

A fishpond in Práchensko

55 Preparations for an offering on the scale for Preparations Depositing metalwork in rivers and lakes, prestigious metalworkprestigious materialsuch as the at Dowris.the type represented wealth of This appearsa warrior to have been of status consisted whose insignia aristocracy, knives and spears, (swords,of weapons and bronze special types of gold, shields) and amber personal ornaments. from People made votive of society probably many levels but it is certain that the aristocracy offerings, great deposits such would have orchestrated as the Dowris hoard. of the Dowris hoard may have taken many of the Dowris many hoard may have taken months. The objects had to be gathered and in some cases made specially, together, the participants and spectators and notified protocols and etiquette agreed, organised, the great day. and the site prepared for may have included not just the The event local community but also wider kinship and people from a large region, allies, groups, further underlining of the wealth and power both the chiefs and the community they whether collections or single artefacts, seems single artefacts,whether collections or Age to have been an important Late Bronze throughout Britain and ritual in Ireland, Europe. widely across probably The favoured were wetlands these deposits locations for river crossings or bogs; such as lakes, significant places in the landscape that must and have been widely recognised as special sacred. had a religious deposits probably The perhaps serving as votive offerings motivation, with no to placate or thank gods or spirits, by intention that they would be recovered mortals. that the offerings were It is likely with structured made very publicly, prestige on the ceremonies that bestowed and in particular those participants, organising and in charge of the ceremony. These would have been major community occasions imbued with social and political marking example, for perhaps, significance, of authority to a chieftain on the the transfer death of a predecessor. 56 Our general understandingOur general of the The objects, which eventually came to the which eventually The objects, instruments, buckets and a cauldron. buckets instruments, A collection of this type may have been possibly period, a considerable gathered over containing material the given as gifts for of people as well a wide range occasion by as sacred heirlooms cherished the whole by community. had been reclaimed over the yearshad been reclaimed over from the in 1825 was and bog complex, Lough Boora marginal agricultural being used as rather land. behaviour of people in the Late Bronze Age behaviour of people in the Late Bronze can suggest a reconstruction of the scene and to the lake, ‘given’ when the hoard was and procedures leading some of the events up to it. controlled A social elite probably National Museum of Ireland, date to c. 800 date to c. National Museum of Ireland, the end of a phase of the Late towards BC, to which archaeologists have Age Bronze given the name Dowris because of the of the hoard itself. defining character The hoard is the largest single collection of Age, metalwork from the Irish Late Bronze artefacts. two hundred bronze with over The its Dowris not just for hoard is exceptional the diversity but also for size of its contents. weapons and personal ornaments are Tools, with ceremonial items such as musical mixed Dowris hoard The Dowris hoard Tools and weapons from the and Tools Part 11- Chapter 3 Pathways to Europe’s Landscape ruled. This was also an occasion to medieval and later aristocracy. These are emphasise authority, to reinforce social and some of the most commonly – noticed political bonds and to ensure future harmony features of landscape. They provide an with divine and spirit worlds and with the invaluable barometer for social and economic ancestors, all of whom had so much influence change, as something that arose from a basic over the uncertainties of life. need for shelter became a means of We can thus populate our prehistoric advertising economic prosperity and social Dowris landscape with a great crowd of position. people approaching the waters edge on the One building type identified in most of day in question. Were they subdued or the project countries is the castle or manor excited, on this great occasion when everyone house of the ruling elite. Two examples of dressed in their finest clothes, the most this are the stone castles that the English built important wearing gold and bronze in Wales in the 13th century as part of ornaments, the warrior caste carrying their Edward I’s invasion to assume the Welsh weaponry? Vibrant music from great bronze throne, and the Czech castles of the 13th horns, with chiming sounds from the crotals, and 14th centuries. perhaps accompanied by songs and dances, would have elevated the occasion further and Wider European styles influenced the accompanied the procession of offering – Welsh castles. They were designed and built bearers to the lake edge. The objects would by the influential architect Master James of St be cast into the lake, perhaps into a deep George, who worked on a number of great pool, with prayers and invocations answered European castles including the fortress of St and enhanced by the watching crowd. George d’Esperanche in Savoy, on the French/Italian border, from which he took his The items may have been deposited one name. His Caernarfon Castle, at the edge of by one, each one displayed and perhaps its our Arfon project, deliberately evoked the history or value extolled. Some of the smaller classical walls of Constantinople (modern day objects may have been placed into a Istanbul) as the English king sought to assume cauldron. To deliberately destroy and discard the distant authority of Roman Emperors. such hard-won treasure could only emphasise the wealth of the community, the power of The castle at Blatná in South Bohemia, the leaders, the value of their faith and the already mentioned because of its association strength of their gods. with fishponds, was built in the 13th century in the plain of the Blatenská Basin. It grew Great changes have taken place in this into a major chateau with a large picturesque Irish landscape since the ritual deposition of park where, amongst the oaks and deer, the Dowris hoard. Peat filled the lake, survive large spoil heaps left over from shrinking it in size, and the peat itself has prehistoric and medieval gold panning that since been dug out for fuel or drained for are explored later in this chapter. agriculture, including the cultivation of potatoes that led to the hoard’s rediscovery. Castles are just one expression of social We might think that as a result of all this status and power in the landscape, albeit Part 11- Chapter 3 change the special character and importance perhaps the most easily recognised. Others of the prehistoric wetland environment has include hunting parks and, in England and been lost. Yet it survives in our imagination Wales, Royal Forests. and in our archaeological records, connecting In the Middle Ages a large proportion of us to an earlier European culture, and the English landscape comprised Royal reminding us of earlier social systems. Forest. By the early 13th century, there were at least 143 forests in England and together these covered about a fifth of the realm. But Status and power this did not mean that one fifth of the The same display of wealth that lies country was covered in trees, because Forests behind the ritual deposition of outrageously were not densely wooded as the term expensive items of gold and bronze in suggests, but comprised a mixture of land Pathways to Europe’s Landscape prehistory can be observed in the removal uses, including wood pasture, settlement of land from agricultural or industrial (sometimes even towns) and cultivated areas production to create landscapes that are, alongside managed woodland. The concept strictly speaking, non-functional but which of the Forest was institutionalised by the reflect status and power. Such, for example, Normans, for whom it was ‘a place set aside are the hunting parks and designed gardens for deer, not a place of trees’. Forests were of the palaces and great houses of the hunting reserves, set in areas close to royal

57 Wild deer grazing in the Forest heavy fine rather than be imprisoned, a sort of Bowland of taxation. As another example, dogs larger than a prescribed size could be ‘expedited’, that is, have a leg cut off in order to prevent them from chasing deer, but this too soon became a source of income and a negotiable asset rather than a punishment. A gauge that was used by the Bow Bearers, caretakers of the Forest of Bowland, to test the size of hunting dogs still survives at the Parker family home of Browsholme Hall near Clitheroe. The designation of an area as Forest had a controlling impact upon the landscape, restricting development and prohibiting and aristocratic estates and seats of power. change. For those who lived within its They were also a prestigious medieval status jurisdiction, Forest Law was a great symbol, initially royal but aspired to by the inconvenience. It prevented landowners from nobility who created their own seigneurial clearing and extending cultivated areas and it forests or chases. also stopped them from planting hedgerows Today, the Forest of Bowland is a name to deter deer from eating crops. Settlement that has been given to a wider area, one of creation and expansion were therefore the UK’s protected areas known as Areas of severely restricted under the regime, which Red grouse in the Forest of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). In the helps to explain why these areas underwent Bowland medieval period, just a small portion of the such limited growth during the medieval Bowland Fells was actually part of the period. designated Forest. There were three other Forests were costly to administer and Royal Forests within the modern boundaries maintain and in the later medieval period a of the AONB, all belonging to the earldom of move towards enclosed deer parks began, Lancaster – Bleasdale to the west, which these being smaller and more manageable. included the Forest of Bowland after 1311, As with the Forest, deer parks were popular Quernmore and Wyresdale. There was also a with the nobility and a great expansion in chase belonging to Hornby Castle, located in their number occurred in the 13th century the Roeburn and Hyndburn valleys in the reflecting the growth of agriculture, wealth north. and population. In Bowland the first portion A great deal of myth surrounds the of the forest to be enclosed was known as Forests, in particular concerning the cruelty Radholme Park, and appears to have been in and bloodthirstiness of the Royal Forests, existence by the end of the 13th century; a which lay outside the jurisdiction of common second park, Leagram, to the east of Part 11- Chapter 3 law. The King could not visit all of his forests; Chipping, was enclosed by the mid-14th professionals carried out most of the hunting, century. Both of these parks were and favoured subjects were presented with administered by keepers who were appointed carcasses for feasting occasions. In an by lords of the chase of Bowland; the average year, Henry III (AD 1216-1272) boundaries of the forest persisted – indeed, took 607 fallow, 159 red and 45 roe deer Forest Law was not officially relaxed until and 88 wild swine from his forests. 1507. Deer parks have left their mark upon Forest law ensured the preservation of the modern landscape. In some areas the deer and wild boar, together with the lesser deep bank and ditch of the park pale that beasts of warren such as hares, foxes, rabbits, once surrounded a park survives, but more cats, martens, pheasants, partridges and commonly place names including ‘park’ and eyries of hawks. Furthermore, it preserved ‘laund’ – meaning a clearing where deer Pathways to Europe’s Landscape underwood for the concealment and grazed – indicate their former locations. sustenance of deer and other beasts. In Hunting continues to have an impact order to achieve this, harsh penalties were upon the modern landscape of Bowland; the meted out to those who did not comply with upland fells have long been a popular Forest law, in particular poachers. However, location for game shooting, especially grouse. by the late Middle Ages it seems that there Many farms are used for this, a major source was more of an interest in raising revenue of income. Habitats are strictly managed in than in brutal retribution. Those who stole order to provide the maximum results for the king’s deer could expect to escape with a visiting hunting parties who pay large sums

58 Prince Regent Luitpold hunting and travel long distances for a shoot. in the Spessart Bowland is home to the red grouse, a game bird that is only found in the British Isles. It breeds on the heather moors and numbers are carefully maintained by managed breeding. The controlled burning of heather provides a desirable habitat with young shoots for food, mature growth for shelter and clearings for the birds to sun themselves in. The present moorland landscape, which many people mistakenly think is wild and natural, is therefore the product of intensive management, as it has been since the exploitation of the forest through glassworks, medieval period when the habitats of deer charcoal production, mining of salt, copper and other quarry were closely controlled and and iron, forest grazing and forestry destroyed the activities of those who lived in the Forest most suitable habitats for deer and wild boar severely restricted. outside the game reserves. Hunting was also a popular pursuit in the In the 19th century the Spessart area Spessart, where there were similar issues of had become increasingly poor. Many of the old sources of income were lost with the social control as for Bowland, albeit a advent of more modern techniques, from number of centuries later. However, the which only few profited. The people of hunting park also had an important Bischbrunn lived either from agriculture or economic role for the region as traditional from the production of charcoal and the industry went into decline and jobs were surnames of many citizens of Bischbrunn scarce. The Spessart demonstrates the reflect this. While connection to the railway fascinating juxtaposition of a vulgar display of allowed cheap transport of charcoal out of wealth against a landscape marred by the Spessart for some time, the development poverty. of the train and river barge system in The role of hunting in the Spessart, Germany also enabled the higher quality coal although sometimes exaggerated and industry to thrive. glorified, was nevertheless significant. In The railway was also vital for transporting reality the game parks mainly served the iron ore from the Spessart directly into the single purpose of supplying sufficient major industrial centres, where it was mixed amounts of game to the kitchen of the most with higher quality ore from other regions and important residence of the archbishopric of processed further. Thus the shift from wood Mainz, Schloss Johannisburg in Aschaffenburg. to coal saw the Spessart charcoal industry In the modern period, the hunt became a decline until it was little more than a myth. social event where nobles had the chance to Part 11- Chapter 3 It became a visitor attraction and shoot game, which was herded at a safe photographs from the early 20th century distance in front of the marksmen’s muskets. show groups of hikers who visited the During these events, the participants were charcoal burners or Sunday picnickers entertained with music and comical shows carrying their baskets to charcoal piles. such as apes riding greyhounds. The life of a charcoal burner was difficult. However, the park went into decline and Wood was collected, cut, chopped and piled it wasn’t until the reign of Prinzregent into large heaps by hand. For days the Luitpold in 1886-1912 that the hunting heaps were burned slowly and had to be tradition in the Spessart was taken up once watched carefully the whole time. The again. He had a small hunting castle built in resultant charcoal was cooled, packed into Rohrbrunn and refurbished the game park in sacks and transported from the forests. For Bischbrunn. Here he kept mainly deer and Pathways to Europe’s Landscape weeks the charcoal burners lived near the wild boar, for which the Spessart is still charcoal piles in the most modest of tents or famous today. simple branch-built huts. Since agriculture Game parks were very important as they was also only marginally profitable, jobs in the kept the wild animals in an enclosed area game reserves brought welcome extra away from crops and managed forests where earnings. Thousands of posts had to be cut, they would cause substantial damage. furnished and set up for the fences, and Poaching was a crime against authority, and repairs were constantly necessary. The was punished severely. At the same time, the

59 The many hunting assistants have made ‘nature’ almost completely that were employed by the artificial. Both the animals and their Prince Regent, Spessart habitat, and the age-old hunting process, are here a long way removed from their origins.

Economy and exploitation Castles, and their hunting parks are clear landscape reminders of status, functional but also symbols of power and authority. Further contributors to landscape character are trade and excitement brought about by Prinzregent industry. A 16th century boom in the Luitpold’s yearly hunting outings can easily be Spessart, for example, prompted by a imagined. Extra money could be earned by burgeoning glass industry, saw the being a beater or hunting assistant, and the construction of many large half- lord distributed gifts to his subjects: sausage timbered houses. Today many of these rolls to the children and cigars among his have been renovated and their helping hands. These cigars are still to be latticework covered, frequently found in some Bischbrunn homes, kept in rendering them unrecognisable, but small glass showcases. above the doorways it is often possible The hunt itself on the other hand held to see the year of construction few, if any, romantic elements. Wild boars engraved into the wood – 1543, 1554, were fed throughout the year, with pre-boiled 1583 and so on. In 17th and 18th potatoes which were easily digested and kept century Lancashire a similar period of in a specially built cellar. For the hunt, the prosperity is reflected in the large animals were herded into special pens and number of houses that were rebuilt at driven through a narrow lane to be shot. this time. As in the Spessart, the year They were driven through the pathway in that the house was built or enlarged order of size, the largest first for the sovereign was often noted, in this case being to shoot the smallest at the end for the carved onto a date stone inserted into lesser nobles. If a shot missed its target the the building’s frontage. The date stone animal was passed through the lane as often usually incorporates the initials of the as was necessary for the hunter to kill it. The owners, giving a brief personal glimpse lanes were ironically called ‘bowling lanes’ by of the past life of the property. the Bischbrunn people. The prosperity of the Spessart was This account of how unnatural hunting founded upon a number of glassworks Charcoal-burning in the became is in itself a microcosm of a cultural that, in their prime, were producing Part 11- Chapter 3 Spessart landscape, showing a way in which people hundreds of thousands of glasses year after year. Primarily manufactured for the Dutch market, for more than a century fashion dictated that glasses from the Spessart were a ‘must have’ for the European nobility. Indeed, Dutch still-lifes from the era often depict lobster red, lemon yellow and forest green glasses that were made in this area. There are many surface traces of glass kilns surviving in the Spessart Pathways to Europe’s Landscape although to the casual observer their previous use is not immediately apparent. Back in the 15th century the Archbishop of Mainz encouraged the economic development of the farther reaches of the Spessart Mountains, particularly promoting industries which would utilise the extensive wood

60 A Lancashire datestone, Bowland

rivers that run through outcrops of gold A Spessart datestone bearing ores. Panning is the easier method and the South Bohemian gold bearing rivers, mainly the Otava and its tributaries Lomnice and Skalice, became the main sources of this ore in prehistory and in the Early Middle Ages. Gold panning was a serious endeavour, covering an area of at least 75 square kilometres at its peak. The spoil heaps created by gold panning are a typical archaeological feature of the South Bohemian landscape. Up to several metres high, these are elongated mounds of stones and sand dredged from the rivers and reserves of the forests. Glassworks were streams. Usually there are depressions therefore established, leading to a massive between them made by removing deposits consumption of timber and charcoal. The above a gold-bearing layer. The gold-panners secrets of glassmaking were jealously mainly worked Pleistocene alluvium, where guarded, in the Spessart Ordnung of 1406; a more gold was deposited than in present-day clause stated that no one should teach river-beds. The oldest technique of gold glassmaking to anyone whose father was not panning was evidently the rinsing of alluvium already involved in the industry. in bowls, but by the Middle Ages the scale of In Southern Bohemia it was the panning had increased and gold panning exploitation of gold that brought affluence to weirs were used. Archaeological evidence of the region, through an industry that dates prehistoric gold panning is very rare, because Part 11- Chapter 3 back to the Iron Age (in the middle of the waste heaps were often reworked time and first millennium BC). This activity has left time again, destroying traces of earlier behind a number of traces in a landscape panning. that is thought to have been deserted for In 1940, during the attempted centuries if not millennia before the arrival of extraction of gold near Modlesovice in the first Iron Age colonists. Could it have Strakonice district, a preserved wooden gold been that the gold enticed them to the area panning weir was discovered; this in the first place? was believed to date back to the Iron Gold was both desired and cursed in Age, but radiocarbon analysis has since shown antiquity. In the 4th century BC the Greek it to be medieval (12th century). Also new comedy dramatist Diphilus wrote ‘I think, recovered were hemp fibre and pieces of that there is nothing mightier than gold, sheep leather, which were evidently used as Pathways to Europe’s Landscape everything is determined by it and everything containers for gold dust. abides by it’. A similar opinion was expressed Gold from panning is purer than by Christopher Columbus almost 2000 years mined gold, and as a result it is possible to later: ‘Everything in the world can be provided determine which technique was used to by gold’. produce particular objects. It was evidently in Gold occurs on almost a sixth of the the Bronze Age that the gold-bearing territory of Bohemia. It can be obtained by deposits of the Otava yielded its first pieces mining quartz or by panning the deposits of to the gold panners. Two of the oldest gold

61 Spoil heaps created by gold panning in southern Bohemia, Práchensko

objects from South Bohemia – an earring Earlier in this chapter, Moel Tryfan has from the tumulus grave in Hosty near T´yn already been mentioned for its enclosures Vltavou and another from the middle Bronze and common land, but its landscape is also Age hillfort near Vrcovice district, Písek, were characterised by extensive and well- made from domestic gold. preserved remains of the slate industry. Evidence of other extractive industries, There are numerous quarries, and because particularly mining and quarrying, can be these were worked by a large number of easily identified in the landscape. For individuals rather than by single companies, example, in North Wales slate has been the result is a highly distinctive cultural worked since Roman times, but in the 18th landscape. Slate mills were built to process century quarrying became a mainstay of the the rough stone, along with barracks for Welsh economy, with a massive increase in workers. Both of course were constructed the scale of exploitation. As a result, the from slate as were the local villages and Two objects made from landscape has been almost wholly shaped by towns that emerged from this industrial

Part 11- Chapter 3 Bohemian gold, the slate industry in places such as Moel boom. Slate was also shipped to Europe and Práchensko Tryfan. America, and at its peak the industry supported 14,000 men and their families. Today just a handful of quarries continue to operate, but with entire hills exploited for their hidden wealth. The Welsh slate industry has left a landscape legacy of vast craters and mountainous spoil heaps that it is impossible to ignore. In the Spessart, the fuel resource provided by the area’s dense woodland cover encouraged the establishment of ore

Pathways to Europe’s Landscape processing from the copper mines. Dating back to the 15th century copper, lead and possibly silver were mined from the clays of the Zechstein, and in 1737 operations were expanded to include iron and cobalt. The various mining industries blossomed until the mid-19th century when the use of local charcoal that had been so important to the

62 area’s industrial development was shipyards, amongst others, for building the superseded by coal, and with it followed the boats that held high the honour of Venice and relocation of industries to other coal–rich the Doges. areas. The front line of the World War I Woodland also provided raw materials battlefield ran straight through the forest of for other purposes, and not only for basic Paneveggio, causing the destruction of over uses such as building or charcoal 200,000 cubic metres of timber together manufacture. In past centuries the Trentino with the sacrifice of the lives of countless area of northern Italy was a flourishing men. In the 1920s, one and a half million mining district with silver and iron mines saplings were planted to offset the distributed across the landscape, but the area devastating effects of the ‘Great War’. Since was also exploited for its wealth of timber. 1967 the Forest of Paneveggio has been the The Forest of Paneveggio, an area heart of Nature Park Paneveggio, Pale di San covering 2700 hectares, is one of the largest Martino, and today it is also known as the wooded areas of the Alps. The tree cover is ‘Forest of Violins’ – after four centuries it still dominated by spruce trees (around 85%), supplies resonant wood to the lute-makers’ and the most magnificent specimens can workshops of Cremona. reach heights of over 40 metres. The remoteness of the Forest of Cultural connections Paneveggio, at a rather high elevation of Modern Europe is covered by a network between 1500 and 1900 metres above sea of communications – in a matter of a few level and being relatively far from human hours it is possible to fly from one city to settlements, has preserved the wildness of another. Our predecessors did not have the this forest for centuries, but the richness of its benefit of air travel, but it was still important timber has inevitably attracted people’s that links were made with other peoples and attention. The first written documents this was achieved via sea, river and road. mentioning the Forest of Paneveggio are One of the main reasons for this of course dated 1315, at a time when its ownership was trade, which brought not only the was disputed between Primiero and Fiemme, but the exploitation of these woods is likely The forest of Paneveggio to have started much earlier. Commercial harvesting of the Forest began in the 15th century. Timber was used to supply the needs of the mining industries, but it was also felled commercially. It had a special use for creating the finest quality musical instruments such as violins. We have no idea of the precise amount of timber

felled in the woods of Primiero but at the Part 11- Chapter 3 beginning of the 17th century approximately 40,000 logs were floated every year down the Cismòn River to Venice. The valuable Paneveggio wood was in great demand among the engineers of the Serenissima

The lutemaker’s shop, Paneveggio Pathways to Europe’s Landscape

63 exchange of goods but also new cultural Among its two hundred objects, continental ideas. European influences can be clearly seen, and The impact of this interaction between equally the Dowris phase of the Irish Late cultures and places can be traced in the land Bronze Age is known in its turn to have scape through the physical survival of routes influenced developments across Europe. and networks. In and around Bowland, for The Dowris hoard probably originally example, long sections of the Roman road consisted of over two hundred pieces of that ran through the fells (connecting bronze. Weapons and tools included five Manchester with Carlisle to the north) swords, similar in design to weapons used in survive as earthworks or as tracks and the south of England at that time, forty four hedgerow lines. This connectivity can also be spear-heads and forty three axe-heads. identified in the social and economic impact Other tools include socketed gouges, which that occurred; with the development of an are virtually unknown outside this extensive road network Roman culture was assemblage, chisels and knives, which would gradually introduced across much of Europe, have been used in woodworking. The hoard bringing many new, shared ideas about also contained several whetstones for politics and religion, as well as introducing sharpening the tools and weapons. foods, clothing, building styles, economic Not all the finds were practical in practices and social systems. function. There were also personal Finds made during archaeological ornaments such as pins, and parts of horse excavation can also help us to understand harness, including rings and fittings. A bronze where such links between communities bucket, constructed of sheets of bronze existed in the past. In Hradiste u Písku, riveted together, was also found, probably Bohemia, a tumulus grave was found to imported from central Europe. There were contain a large amount of gold objects, two other buckets in the hoard that appear including earrings, hair coils and rings, and to be Irish copies. These are rich objects, amongst this treasure was a bronze Etruscan made with substantial amounts of bronze, wine jug with a beak-shaped mouth that had and are unlikely to have been used for been imported all the way from central Italy. fetching water. There was also a cauldron made of riveted bronze sheets, and musical The Dowris hoard provides a further instruments – twenty four trumpets and forty example of the impact and extent of historic four crotals, a kind of bell or chime patterns of trade and communication. instrument unique to Ireland.

Bucket and crotals from the Dowris hoard Part 11- Chapter 3 Pathways to Europe’s Landscape

64 Conclusion An appreciation of how and why landscapes have changed in the past will allow judgments We are celebrating in this book the great to be made about the direction and impact diversity of the European landscape, a of future change. Without such recognition it diversity that is cherished and valued for is difficult to anticipate and plan for the providing interest and local distinctiveness, a inevitable changes that the future will bring. diversity that leads to a sense of place, and It is important to persuade people not most of all a diversity that is rooted in the necessarily to keep things as they are, but not past. We have also seen, however, that many to change the landscape without common themes and linkages can be made understanding it and its stories. How people across Europe in terms of economics, social appreciate the cultural dimension of the systems, architecture, language, history and landscape is considered in our final two prehistory, each reflected in the landscape. chapters of this book, firstly through myths Trade and exchange have played an and legends and secondly through modern important role in the fostering of alliances techniques of research, interpretation, and networks, and establishing a common explanation and presentation. The two understanding between cultures – interaction approaches give us rather different that may have begun as an economic venture perceptions that together enrich our view of can unwittingly become a cultural link which the cultural landscape. Myths turn our encourages the translocation of customs and attention more firmly to the idea of the ideas. Through the EPCL project this ‘mental’ landscape and how people have for exchange of ideas has continued, with centuries explained their environment, and partner projects sharing their experiences formed their perceptions of the landscape. and understanding of the cultural landscape. Such stories were common ways of There is often a generalised perception explaining things in the past, but they should that today’s landscape is both unchanging and still form an important part of our rooted in the present, but in truth it is a appreciation of the cultural landscape today. dynamic palimpsest that changes over time. Part 11- Chapter 3 Pathways to Europe’s Landscape

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Part 11- Chapter 3 Pathways to Europe’s Landscape