Spatial and temporal dimension of historical charcoal-burning in the Tauerscher Forst (Lower Lusatia, Brandenburg). A contribution towards cultural landscape development in the North German Lowlands

• Applicants: Dr. Alexandra Raab; Professor Dr. Thomas Raab
• Subject Area: Physical Geography
• Term: from 2014 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 270363012

For the northern part of the Tauersche Forst (Lower Lusatia, Brandeburg), a sub-region of the North German Lowland, the spatiotemporal dimension of the former charcoal production is to be investigated exemplarily. Archaeological research in combination with the analysis of shaded-relief maps (SRM) based on high-resolution airborne laserscanning (ALS) data prove that charcoal-burning in the opencast mine Jänschwalde (southeastern part of the Tauerscher Forst) was far more important from the 17th to the mid-19th century than previously assumed. Therefore, historical charcoal-burning is a not to be underestimated part of the cultural landscape development of Lower Lusatia and the environmental impact of this charcoal production is mostly unknown. Following aims are in the focus of the project: (1) development and validation of a semi-automatic method for the detection of charcoal kiln relicts; (2) recording of number and size of the charcoal kiln relicts in the study area Tauer; (3) classification and spatial grouping (regionalisation) of the charcoal kiln relicts using GIS; (4) age determination of the charcoal production in the study area Tauer; (5) discussion of the results in context with current national and international research results e.g., from the Serrahn (Müritz Nationalpark), the Netherlands, Norway, Forest of Dean and Rockingham Forest (England).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Anna Schneider