An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Long-Term History of Raised Bogs: a Case Study at Vriezenveen (the Netherlands)

Abstract

Abstract Culturally oriented studies on raised bogs in the Netherlands and neighbouring areas either focus on regional scale levels or on site/object-based information. Interdisciplinary microregional studies are key to bridge the gap between these types of data and to reconstruct human-land relations in detail. This paper analyses which cultural and natural processes were involved in the long-term development of a raised bog near Vriezenveen (province of Overijssel), by integrating geological, palynological, archaeological and historical geographical data. The study area includes both the bog, which has largely been reclaimed, and the nearby drylands. The landscape was subject to continuous change, driven by a complex and dynamic entanglement of environmental, socio-economic and ideological factors. The research results point to differences in the pace of landscape change between wetland and neighbouring drylands, and variability in the resilience of different cultural landscape elements and practices. They also illustrate the potentials as well as the problems of producing integrated narratives of landscape change and human activity for wetland environments and how these sorts of studies might be progressed in the future.