The Historical Cultural Landscape of the Western Sudetes. an Introduction to the Research

Summary The historical cultural landscape of the western Sudetes. An introduction to the research I. Introduction The authors of the book attempted to describe the cultural landscape created over the course of several hundred years in the specific mountain and foothills conditions in the southwest of Lower Silesia in Poland. The pressure of environmental features had an overwhelming effect on the nature of settlements. In conditions of the widespread predominance of the agrarian economy over other categories of production, the foothills and mountains were settled later and less intensively than those well-suited for lowland agriculture. This tendency is confirmed by the relatively rare settlement of the Sudetes in the early Middle Ages. The planned colonisation, conducted in Silesia in the 13th century, did not have such an intensive course in mountainous areas as in the lowland zone. The western part of Lower Silesia and the neighbouring areas of Lusatia were colonised by in a planned programme, bringing settlers from the German lan- guage area and using German legal models. The success of this programme is considered one of the significant economic and organisational achievements of Prince Henry I the Bearded. The testimony to the implementation of his plan was the creation of the foundations of mining and the first locations in Silesia of the cities of Złotoryja (probably 1211) and Lwówek (1217), perhaps also Wleń (1214?). The mountain areas further south remained outside the zone of intensive colonisation. This was undertak- en several dozen years later, at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, and mainly in the 14th century, adapting settlement and economy to the special conditions of the natural environment. The intensification of settlement and density of the village network took place in modern times, after the end of the 30-years war (1618-1648). 661 Summary Within a few centuries of development, an original sub-region was formed, distant from central political and economic centres. Its cultural features were shaped by per- manent adaptation to the environmental conditions of the foothills and mountains. Other turning points that change the image of the sub-region are industrialisation and the outflow of people to the towns from the mid-19th century, emigration across the Atlantic, and then the almost complete population exchanges after the Second World War. The remains of the former cultural landscape are, however, largely legible and attractive to new residents. In a way, they create a place of collective memory in the sense given by sociologist Pierre Nora – a place of “second-order history”, the story of an ordinary man including a house, village, small town, and sub-region. The main aim of the research was focused on the reconstruction of the individual features of the cultural landscape of the Western Sudetes and its development from the settlement of the area in the Middle Ages and modern times, up to the 20th century. The subject of detailed analysis was the area of four former districts centred around local central centres – Wleń, Lwówek Śląski, Jelenia Góra, and Gryfów Śląski. The final result was to describe a mountain sub-region formed of complementary func- tional elements – defensive works, towns, villages, mining centres and relics of law enforcement. The conducted research falls within the scope of broadly-defined historical archaeology, or more precisely within the framework of settlement archaeology, taking into ac- count that currently referred to as landscape archaeology. In order to achieve this goal, however, it was fundamental to conduct the research instrumentally, which can be completed only when adopting interdisciplinary conventions. Therefore, the analysis was conducted from the position of methods appropriate mainly for archaeology, ge- ography, and history, but using the opportunities offered by the history of architecture and urban planning, ethnology and petrography. The digital terrain model (Digital Elevation Model, DEM) made with the use of air scanning was then compared with historical cartographic sources and written sources. An invaluable analytical tool was the Geographic Information System (GIS) software. II. Natural conditions of the Western Sudetes ‒ valorisation in terms of settlement and economic usefulness The research area includes two macro-regions according to the physico-geographical division of Poland: the Western Sudetes and Western Sudetes Foothills. Due to the considerable diversity of natural conditions (relief, lithology, hydrographic network), seven mesoregions stand out within them: the Izerskie Mountains, Karkonosze, Jeleni- ogórska Valley, Rudawy Janowickie, Kaczawskie Mountains, Jizera Foothills and part of the Kaczawskie Foothills. 662 Summary The Western Sudetes and the Western Sudetes Foothills have been blessed with an abundance of mineral and rock raw materials of economic importance since the Middle Ages. The richness and diversity of these resources is conditioned by a varied geological structure, including the widespread occurrence of various metamorphic rocks, within which numerous vein rocks with polymetallic crumbs have formed. The exploitation of gold, silver, copper, arsenic, lead, zinc, tin, cobalt, as well as various rock materials (including granites, sandstones, gneisses) and precious and semi-precious and ornamental minerals and stones have been of particular importance. The relief in the surveyed area is characterised by a great variety and spatial diversity, which is mainly due to tectonic and lithological conditions. A gradual increase in altitude is observed in the research area above sea level from north to south (the exception is a dip in the Jelenia Góra Valley). At the same time, this area should be considered strongly fragmented due to the dense river network and the numerous occurrence of dry denudation valleys. Within the foothills, the topography is relatively mild, undu- lating and hilly, while in the mountainous areas there are large contrasts in the topography, greater height differences and slopes. The foothill relief was more conducive to the development of a dense settlement network, evenly distributed throughout the entire area, while areas with greater contrasts in relief caused the concentration of settlement networks in depressions, which led to the creation of a characteristic, linear arrangement of chain villages in mountainous areas. The dense network of river valleys at the same time allowed for relatively easy accessibility even deeper into the mountain massifs and the development of settlement and communication networks also in the surroundings of higher and steep parts of the area. Especially the valleys of the region’s main rivers, the Bóbr and Kwisa, and some of their larger tributaries, creating wide valley depressions locally, favoured the settlement and development of transport routes. In turn, the presence of many isolated hills and ravined sections of valleys favoured the location of defensive structures in these places. In the surveyed area, the share of areas below 350 metres above sea level is around 45%. This is the height accepted in Poland as the border between lowland areas with better farming conditions and mountainous areas, where this activity is difficult – about 55% of the research area is above this limit. At the same time, the vast majority of the research area (76%) falls below the so-called profitability limit for the Sudetes set at approx. 500 metres above sea level. About one-third of the research area has the best conditions for agricultural development, including slopes (below 3°). For the entire region, the gradient of the slopes should be considered to be predominantly good and very good for agricultural activities. However, there are large spatial differences, visible especially between mountain areas, with much greater slopes, and foothills, with smaller slopes. However, the slopes with northern and north-eastern exposure prevail, which is less conducive to agricultural activity. In turn, the suitability of the slope terrain in terms of construction is much less favourable. There is a clear differ- ence between the north-west part of the research area, where the best conditions for 663 Summary construction prevail, and the mountain relief in the south-western part of the research area, with the worst conditions. Slopes most favourable to construction (less than 2%) occupy only 12% of the research area. The spatial dependence of the settlement network density on the slope is clearly visible. In mountainous areas, the settlement network is much less abundant and restricted mainly to the bottom of river valleys. A characteristic feature of the topography of the surveyed area is the presence of extensive and flattened mountain tops and ridge parts of the mountains, while the lower-lying slopes are much steeper. So, despite the higher altitude, and thus more difficult climatic conditions (lower temperatures, higher humidity), the ridges of the Western Sudetes were often used for agriculture, mainly as pasture, while the lower areas with better climatic conditions, but with greater slopes, remained in use as com- pact forest complexes. Agricultural land currently occupies around 57% in the area of analysis, and forests 37%. In the past, this division varied – in the period from the Middle Ages to the second half of the 19th century, there was a gradual increase in agricultural land and built-up areas at the expense of the loss of forest area, but the reverse trend

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