Lukas Werther

Pfalzen dienten den Königen und Kaisern mit ihrem Gefolge im gesamten Mittelalter als temporäre Aufenthaltsorte. Das Gebiet um die heutige Stadt Bad Neustadt a. d. Saale mit der Königspfalz Salz spielte vom mittleren 8. bis mittleren 10. Jahrhundert für die reisenden Herrscher eine wichtige Rolle. Seit 2009 forscht die Universität Jena in Kooperation mit der Stadt Bad Neustadt, den Gemeinden Hohenroth und Salz, dem Bayerischen Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und zahlreichen Kolleginnen und Kollegen aus verschiedenen Nachbardisziplinen im Pfalzgebiet Salz.
Im vorliegenden ersten Band der Reihe „Interdisziplinäre Forschungen zur Königspfalz Salz“ fi nden sich neben einer diachronen Betrachtung des gesamten Pfalzgebiets und einem Überblick zur Burgenlandschaft im Saaleraum, neue Forschungsergebnisse und Materialvorlagen, die wichtige Bausteine liefern, um das Gesamtkonstrukt „Pfalz Salz“ zu
rekonstruieren und besser zu verstehen. Neben kleineren archäologischen Einzeluntersuchungen in Salz, Brend und der Flur Mühlstatt wird vor allem auch den naturwissenschaftlichen Nachbarfächern Raum gegeben, ihre Forschungsergebnisse
zu präsentieren. Die große Bedeutung der Interaktion von Mensch und Umwelt bereits im frühen Mittelalter wird etwa durch Arbeiten
der physischen Geographie, Geoarchäologie und Palynologie greifbar, die Veränderungen der Landnutzung und damit einhergehende langfristige Landschaft sveränderungen beleuchten. Vielfältige wirtschafts- und sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte werden im archäobotanischen und archäozoologischen Material sichtbar, in dem sich beispielsweise
Unterschiede der Ernährungsgewohnheiten und Haustierhaltung niederschlagen. Großes Forschungspotential bietet auch der bislang wissenschaft lich noch kaum erschlossene Salzforst, der in diesem Band ebenfalls thematisiert wird.

Inland harbours as gateways between water and land are crucial nodes for mobility and economic exchange in Antiquity as well as in the Middle Ages. This volume is a collection of 20  papers given in 2016 at the international conference “Inland harbours in Central Europe: Nodes between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea” in Dijon (University of Burgundy, France). The conference has been part of Priority Program 1630 ”Harbours” funded by the German Research Foundation. The papers deal with the archaeological, historical and geographical analysis of specific harbours and ships, harbour systems of selected rivers and lakes as well as larger harbour networks and their interplay with other infrastructure. The case studies cover a wide geographic range from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean with a particular focus on France and Germany.

The European Harbour Data Repository is a series of databases which were compiled in the framework of the DFG-funded Priority Program 1630 “Harbours from the Roman Period to the Middle Ages” (http://www.spp-haefen.de/en/home/) by a team of archaeologists, historians, geographers, and information technology specialists. It catalogues harbours, harbour-related infrastructure, and vessels all over Europe with a chronological focus on the Roman and Medieval Period. Different digital volumes of the data repository have been compiled by several project teams within and without the Priority Program. The Data Repository is available via https://www.db-thueringen.de/receive/dbt_mods_00035239.
Every volume of the Data Repository is authored by one or several specialists. Therefore, the spatial and chronological focus, as well as the size of the datasets, differ significantly. Given the spatial and chronological scale and the diversity of sources, this Data Repository does not aim to be exhaustive. The different databases are available as Excel-file as well as .csv to allow for long-term reusability. Further information and specific critical comments are available in an accompanying pdf for each database.

Vol. 1: L. Kröger, Within the network of fluvial ports. In: L. Werther/H. Müller/M. Foucher (ed.), European Harbour Data Repository, vol. 01 (Jena 2018). https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.35240
Vol. 2: T. Bendschus, S. Feuser, Images and imaginations of roman ports. In: L. Werther/H. Müller/M. Foucher (ed.), European Harbour Data Repository, vol. 02 (Jena 2018). https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.35243
Vol. 3- : forthcoming 2018/2019
Vol. 3: T. Schmidts, The Thracian harbour city Ainos. In: L. Werther/H. Müller/M. Foucher (Hrsg.), European Harbour Data Repository, vol. 03 (Jena 2019). https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.38381
Vol. 4: A. Ginalis/D. Heher/A. Külzer/J. Preiser-Kapeller/G. Simeonov, Harbours and landing places on the Balkan coasts of the Byzantine empire (4th to 12th centuries. In: L. Werther/H. Müller/M. Foucher (Hrsg.), European Harbour Data Repository, vol. 04 (Jena 2019). https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.38384
Vol. 5: G. H. Jeute, Harbours as factors in the settlement of the Bremen Basin between the Roman Iron Age and the Middle Ages. In: L. Werther/H. Müller/M. Foucher (Hrsg.), European Harbour Data Repository, vol. 05 (Jena 2019). https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.38387
Vol. 6: S. Kalmring, The Leiruvogur harbor research project. Interdisciplinary archaeological examination of a Viking harbor and its hinterland in Iceland. In: L. Werther/H. Müller/M. Foucher (Hrsg.), European Harbour Data Repository, vol. 06 (Jena 2019). https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.38390
Vol. 7: B. Majchczack Trading terps and Geest boundary harbours medieval trading ports on the German North Sea coast. In: L. Werther/H. Müller/M. Foucher (Hrsg.), European Harbour Data Repository, vol. 07 (Jena 2019). https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.38393
Vol. 8: J. Trachet/D. de Ruijsscher Medieval Bruges and its outports. A landscape-archaeological contribution to the Zwin-debate. In: L. Werther/H. Müller/M. Foucher (Hrsg.), European Harbour Data Repository, vol. 08 (Jena 2019). https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.38396

Das Schwerpunktprogramm 1630 der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft »Häfen der Römischen Kaiserzeit und des Mittelalters – Zur Archäologie und Geschichte regionaler und überregionaler Verkehrssysteme« widmet sich der Erforschung von Häfen als Schnittstellen zwischen dem Wasser- und Landweg unter verschiedensten Aspekten.
Der Band versammelt 13 Beiträge, die im Jahre 2015 im Rahmen einer Plenartagung zu den Leitthemen »Netzwerke: Die Rolle der Häfen bei Produktion und Güteraustausch« sowie »Standortbedingungen und Entwicklungsmodelle« gehalten wurden.
Der geographisch weit gespannte Rahmen reicht vom Nordatlantik bis in den östlichen Mittelmeerraum. Thematisiert werden See- und Binnenhäfen sowie künstliche Wasserstraßen. Der Band vereint Ergebnisse interdisziplinärer (geo-)archäologischer und geophysikalischer Feldforschungen, schriftquellenbasierter Untersuchungen und überregionaler Studien.

Book of Abstracts of the conference "Les ports de navigation intérieure en Europe Centrale : relais entre l’Europe du Nord et la Méditerranée
-
Inland harbours in Central Europe: Nodes between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea

Dijon, 1./2. Dec. 2016

The international symposium organized in Dijon forms part of the SPP1630 European project “Harbours” on inland harbours from roman period to middle ages, in which the Burgundy University cooperates with the Friedrich Schiller University from Jena.
The SPP1630 offers a structural and diachronic comparative analysis of the harbours networks on inland waterbodies. Its goals are the study of the harbours settled on lakes or rivers as a complex phenomenon, and the assessment of their respective significance as hubs in the communication and exchange network between Mediterranean Sea and Northern Europe. The project relies on the analysis of archaeological (from roman period) and historical sources, and integrates the waterbodies navigability (watersheds, dynamics, flow, land cover,…), as the characteristics of naval architecture (adaptation of boats to specific river dynamics…), the presence of crossings between fluvial and terrestrial pathways (transhipment points), or the tolls (socio-economic evolutions, borders, etc.). These two days gather German, French and European researchers from the different fields required on such a research problem (history, archaeology, geography, palaeoenvironmental analysis, geomatics), in the aim to present recent discoveries and results. The present book contains the 27 abstracts in three languages (French, German, English). A collection of articles will be published from the communications presented during the symposium.

Der Karlsgraben wurde im Jahr 793 auf Initiative Karls des Großen zur Überwindung der europäischen Hauptwasserscheide errichtet. Der Kanal zählt zu den bedeutendsten wasserbaulichen Großprojekten des Frühmittelalters und sollte die Hafennetzwerke des Donau- und Rheinsystems auf schiffbarem Wege verbinden. Seit 2012 untersucht eine interdisziplinäre Forschergruppe aus Archäologen, Geographen, Physikern und Historikern das außergewöhnliche Bauwerk. Der Begleitband der Ausstellung „Großbaustelle 793. Das Kanalprojekt Karls des Großen zwischen Rhein und Donau“ bietet nach eineinhalb Jahren intensiver Forschung einen Überblick über laufende Arbeiten und neueste Ergebnisse. Über 25 Einzelbeiträge präsentieren verschiedene Facetten des Bauwerkes und beleuchten zugleich unterschiedliche Perspektiven, Fragestellungen und Methoden der Forschenden.

Die Grenze als abstraktes Phänomen wird in den einzelnen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen sehr differenziert betrachtet. Die Herangehensweisen und Schwerpunkte reichen von fiktiven Räumen über historische Grenzziehungen bis hin zu konkret physischen Barrieren. In den verschiedenen geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Fachdisziplinen erfahren Grenzphänomene derzeit eine Renaissance. Auch in Öffentlichkeit und Politik findet, gerade vor dem Hintergrund der häufig unter dem Schlagwort der Globalisierung zusammengefassten Prozesse, eine neue Auseinandersetzung mit physischen Räumen und Grenzen statt. Angesichts dieser gesellschaftspolitischen Relevanz ist es erstaunlich, wie wenig sich die Forschungsdisziplinen um interdisziplinäre Ansätze bemühen. Der Tagungsband vereint sechs Beiträge, die einzelne Facetten des Themenkomplexes aus soziologischer, politikwissenschaftlicher, sprach- und medienwissenschaftlicher, historischer und archäologischer Perspektive beleuchten.

Die Weißenburger Linie wurde zwischen März und Juli/August 1704 im Spanischen Erbfolgekrieg durch den Fränkischen Kreis als Schanzlinie gegen französische Truppen errichtet. Die Schriftquellen zu dieser Befestigung sind gut untersucht; hier wird nun erstmals eine genaue Lokalisierung und umfassende, detaillierte archäologische Fernerkundung des Kernbereichs der Schanzenlinie präsentiert. Die Weißenburger Linie wurde mit allen zur Verfügung stehenden historischen Karten des 18. Jahrhunderts, Urkataster-und Urpositionsblättern des 19. Jahrhunderts, Luftbildern und LiDAR-Scans so genau wie möglich lokalisiert, beschrieben und landschaftsarchäologisch ausgewertet. Unterschiede in Lokalisation und Größe der einzelnen Elemente zeigen, dass der kartographisch 1704 dokumentierte Plan nicht vollständig umgesetzt werden konnte. Zudem konnten Aussagen zur militärstrategischen Landschaftsnutzung und zum Umgang mit den Linienresten nach den drohenden Kriegshandlungen gewonnen werden. Die Weißenburger Linie ist auch von potenziellem Interesse für die Beurteilung des frühmittelalterlichen Karlsgrabens, welcher in die Befestigung miteinbezogen wurde.

The shale oil plant “Wüste 3” in Wurttemberg was part of the Nazi project “Unternehmen Wüste” (1944–1945), a war enterprise meant to ensure the fuel supply of the German Reich by exploiting unfree labour. This chapter presents a research-led teaching project at the University of Tübingen in which small finds from the former industrial site of “Wüste 3” have been analysed and presented to a wider public in the KZ museum Bisingen. The aim of the public outreach project is to contribute to the research into the link between Nazi war economy and forced labour as well as to the work of local memorial initiatives.

Ridge and furrow fields are land-use-related surface structures that are widespread in Europe and represent a geomorphological key signature of the Anthropocene. Previous research has identified various reasons for the intentional and unintentional formation of these structures, such as the use of a mouldboard plough, soil improvement and drainage. We used GIS-based quantitative erosion modelling according to the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) to calculate the erosion susceptibility of a selected study area in Southern Germany. We compared the calculated erosion susceptibility for two scenarios: (1) the present topography with ridges and furrows and (2) the smoothed topography without ridges and furrows. The ridges and furrows for the studied site reduce the erosion susceptibility by more than 50% compared to the smoothed surface. Thus, for the first time, we were able to identify lower soil erosion susceptibility as one of the possible causes for the formation of ridge and furrow fields. Finally, our communication paper points to future perspectives of quantitative analyses of historical soil erosion.

This document contains data sets of the valley depositions of
the Loosbach valley and data of the Late Neolithic wetland
site of Pestenacker. It consists of raw data and graphical figures
of direct push-based electrical conductivity and colour
logs and driving core recoveries as well as hand drilling recoveries
presented by Köhler et al. [1] .
We reviewed unpublished archaeological profiles to determine
the incision levels of former stream phases at Pestenacker
site. Here, we provide the new, reusable and accessible
data set.
The data sets and figures of the valley depositions can
be used for further analyses, including statistical ones, to improve the methods of the direct-push sensing and to
compare it with the sedimentological features recovered
from driving core and hand drillings. In addition, the data
set is useful for further issues in Pestenacker as well as
in the whole central Europe. Especially in the circum-
Alpine region, as a comparison with other pile dwellings
or stilt houses built from the Neolithic to the Bronce Age.

The reconstruction and understanding of tipping points in environmental systems have become an important issue for the global geoscientific community. This study focuses on the reconstruction of the Holocene deposition history of the Loosbach valley at the Pestenacker site, a Late Neolithic wetland occupation in the northern Alpine forelands of Central Europe (South Germany). Since 2011, it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage 'Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps'. This study aims to reconstruct a potential passing of a Middle Holocene hydrological tipping point in the Loosbach valley and its interrelation with the Late Neolithic onset of valley occupation at that time. In this context, we make use of chronostratigraphical data sets about the Holocene fluvial dynamics of Loosbach stream from available archaeological excavation reports and spatially enlarge the local model of Holocene stream evolution with high-resolution direct push cross-sections from the proximate fen stratigraphies. As a result, the onset of the Late Neolithic settlement phase corresponds with a local hydrological tipping point at the wetland site of Pestenacker. Increased cooling and climatic humidity led to stream incision into the valley floor that resulted in draining, a local decrease of the groundwater table and the end of fen formation. As an apparently contradictory result of this process, increased water availability and runoff correspond with increased edaphic aridity on the valley floor. The latter may have made it possible to settle the valley floor during the late Neolithic.

Wetland environments, with their excellent conservation conditions, provide geoarchaeological archives of past human activities. However, the subsurface soil is difficult to access due to high groundwater tables, unstable sediments, and the high cost of excavation. In this study, we present a ground-based non- and minimal-invasive prospection concept adapted to the conditions of wetlands. We investigated the Fossa Carolina in South Germany, a canal that was intended in 792/793 AD by Charlemagne to bridge the Central European Watershed. Although the resulting Carolingian banks and the fairway with wooden revetments are very imposing, archaeological traces of off-site construction activities have not been identified hitherto. Based on a geophysically surveyed intensive linear magnetic anomaly parallel to the Carolingian canal, we aimed to prove potential off-site traces of Carolingian construction activities. In this context, we built up a high-resolution cross-section using highly depth-accurate direct push sensing and ground-truthing. Our results showed the exact geometry of the canal and the former banks. Thus, the magnetic mass anomaly could be clearly located between the buried organic-rich topsoil and the Carolingian banks. The thermoluminescence dating showed that the position of the magnetic mass anomaly reflected Carolingian activities during the construction phases, specifically due to heat exposure. Moreover, we found hints of the groundwater supply to the 5-metre wide navigable fairway.

Hydro-sedimentary processes such as soil erosion, sediment transport, deposition, and re-deposition influence the environmental evolution of floodplains, especially in loess-covered catchments. Holocene floodplain deposits are thus a source of information on previous hydro-sedimentary dynamics and land use in the catchment. Resulting from forest clearings in the catchment, the onset of overbank silt-clay deposition is considered as an initial and significant human-induced process affecting Central European floodplain evolution and ecosystems. However, it is difficult to separate climate-related from anthropogenic forces on depositional environments, and the complexity of the hydro-sedimentary responses is part of an ongoing debate in geoscientific, ecological, and archaeological communities. This study focuses on the Central European Weiße Elster river system, where humans have been influencing hydro-sedimentary processes since the Early Neolithic due to land-use-induced soil erosion predominantly in the loess-covered sub-basin of the middle course. A catchment-scale XRF element record of fluvial sediment sources combined with the geochemical characterisation of Holocene floodplain deposits aimfor a better understanding of the interplay between past soil erosion, overbank deposition in the floodplain, and potential changes in sediment provenances. The Weiße Elster floodplain chronosequences show a geochemical differentiation into a lower (Neolithic) and an upper (post-Neolithic) overbank silt-clay deposition. The construction of a sediment source fingerprinting mixing model yields the significant finding that the Neolithic overbank silt-clay deposition reveals a remote provenance signal from the upper catchment and less from the proximal loess-covered sub-catchment. According to a systematic archaeological data survey, the upper catchmentwas not permanently settled and used for agriculture in the Neolithic period. This contradicts the previous assumption that Neolithic overbank silt-clay deposition primarily originates from forest clearings and subsequent farming-induced soil erosion in the catchment. Fromamore general perspective, further examination of existing hypotheses concerning overbank silt-clay deposition in Central European floodplains is thus in order.

Die Corona-Pandemie verändert die archäologische Lehre und das Miteinander an der Universität Tübingen nachhaltig. Neben zahlreichen Problemen hat die Krise auch positive Entwicklungen in Gang gesetzt und gezwungen, didaktisch neue Wege zu gehen. In unserem Beitrag werden Herausforderungen und Perspektiven aus Sicht von Studierenden und Lehrenden beleuchtet.

The first navigable canal across the main European watershed in southern Germany was the most
ambitious and visionary hydro-engineering project of the Early Middle Ages, known as Charlemagne’s
Fossa Carolina. Hydrological conditions would have been crucial for both the construction process and
subsequent navigability.Written sources specify that heavy rainwas a crucial factor for the abandonment
of the project in late 793 CE, a few months after digging began. Our understanding of past climate
variability in this region is, however, limited by the lack of high-resolution proxy archives. Here, we use
annually resolved and absolutely dated ring-width measurements of 2469 drought sensitive oaks
(Quercus sp.) from Bavaria, Germany, to reconstruct regional changes in hydroclimate back to 500 CE.
Periods of anomalously dry summers occurred from ~600 to 800, ~900e1000, ~1200e1400 and ~1700
e1900 CE, whereas increased humidity characterized the 9th century, High Middle Ages (11the12th
century) and the 17th century CE. Relatively dry conditions during the construction period favoured the
building progress of the Fossa Carolina. However, the heavy rain which stopped the project in 793 CE is
not reflected in radial oak growth. This is likely related to i) the historically recorded event happened
outside the growing season and ii) compared to dry extremes, wet extremes are generally less pronounced
in tree-ring width. Nevertheless, our results provide the first local hydroclimate reconstruction
covering the entire Early Middle Ages and thus, placing the Fossa Carolina in a long-term high-resolution
environmental perspective.

In this editorial, we give a short state of the art of geoarchaeology, including recent advancements and challenges, and shortly present the seven contributions to our special issue "Geoarchaeology and past human–environment interactions" that was published in January 2020 in E & G - Quaternary Science Journal.

The Early Medieval Fossa Carolina is the first hydro-engineering construction that bridges the Central European Watershed. The canal was built in 792/793 AD on order of Charlemagne and should connect the drainage systems of the Rhine-Main catchment and the Danube catchment. In this study, we show for the first time, the integration of Airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and geoarchaeological subsurface datasets with the aim to create a 3D-model of Charlemagne's summit canal. We used a purged Digital Terrain Model that reflects the pre-modern topography. The geometries of buried canal cross-sections are derived from three archaeological excavations and four high-resolution direct push sensing transects. By means of extensive core data, we interpolate the trench bottom and adjacent edges along the entire canal course. As a result, we are able to create a 3D-model that reflects the maximum construction depth of the Carolingian canal and calculate an excavation volume of approx. 297,000 m 3. Additionally, we compute the volume of the present dam remnants by Airborne LiDAR data. Surprisingly, the volume of the dam remnants reveals only 120,000 m 3 and is much smaller than the computed Carolingian excavation volume. The difference reflects the erosion and anthropogenic overprint since the 8th century AD.

Summary
Research on Mediaeval Inland Harbours between
Rhine and Danube
This paper presents ongoing and completed research within the framework of the
„Inland Harbours Project“ at Jena University. Five case studies – Karlburg, Salz,
Ratisbon, Frankfurt on the Main, and the Fossa Carolina – illustrate how archaeological, geo-archaeological, and historical methods can help to identify harbour structures
and historical riverbanks as well as transport networks. Previous work on mediaeval
navigation was usually focussed on maritime harbours as well as early mediaeval
emporia and often lacked interdisciplinary approaches. Because inland waters and
especially rivers may have changed their course dramatically throughout history,
it is essential to combine archaeological and historical methods and sources with
geo-archaeological and other natural scientific methods. This enables the accurate
reconstruction of the historical terrain relief and hydrological situations and correct interpretation of potential archaeological features of harbour installations. Additionally,
the meaning and function of a harbour can only be understood by studying its location
on a local scale within its related urban topography and harbour-related infrastructure
(e. g. castles), and on a regional and superregional scale within its topographical and
political framework. Research within the „Inland Harbours Project“ shows that even
in the High and Late Middle Ages, harbours did not necessarily need constructive
installations to land boats, which leads to the question of whether bank revetments
and quays were initially a response to land reclamation.
The two early mediaeval centres of Karlburg on the river Main and Salz at the
Frankish Saale illustrate how methods of archaeology and geo-archaeology can be
combined to receive evidence-based results of the former river courses and the terrain. For Karlburg, the hypothesis of a mediaeval harbour basin, which is based on a
historical map from the 19th century, has been revised. The results of archaeological
excavations, geological drillings, and surveys allowed the location of the mediaeval
river bank at a distance of 2 km up to 100 metres west of the modern river. Because no
harbour constructions were found, a natural landing site can be assumed. In contrast
to Karlburg, a wide range of geo-archaeological methods showed the stable position of the Frankish Saale in Salz from the Neolithic to the Early and High Middle
Ages. Being part of the royal palace complex Salz, located in the deserted riverine
settlement Mühlstatt, people lived on an elevated, flood-safe position on a calcitecemented gravel layer/alluvial fan. A simple, naturally formed landing site with a
gently sloping embankment could be reconstructed.
The ongoing research of the mediaeval harbour in Ratisbon is focussed on the
analysis of different small rescue excavations along the modern river bank and the
analysis of a huge urban excavation at Regensburg „Donaumarkt“. Because of the
excellent preservation of archaeological features, many scientific methods such as
dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating, archaebotany, and archaeozoology are used
to analyse the development of the mediaeval waterfront in light of inland navigation
Forschungen zu den mittelalterlichen Binnenhäfen zwischen Rhein und Donau 245
and urban development. Early results of the Donaumarkt excavation revealed that
the river bank from the 9th and 10th century was located 20 metres further inland.
Moreover, a navigable side arm or canal was detected parallel to the main arm of
the Danube that was used until the 11th or 12th century. In contrast to Karlburg and
Salz, different types of bank revetments have been documented such as wattle work,
stones, and wooden poles. The whole Danube river bank was used for navigation and
may have had special functional zones that were associated with the landward urban
topography.
An exceptional example for the construction of mediaeval inland harbours is a
quay wall of the 13th/14th century that was discovered in 2012 at the mediaeval Saalhof castle in Frankfurt on the Main. The quay made of stone and wood is located at the
court wall of a mediaeval water castle from the 12th and 13th century (the Saalhof).
The quay is two metres wide and paved, and it ran parallel to the court wall of the
Saalhof. Based on urban topography, the Saalhof castle was located in the commercial
heart of the town, framed by the most important streets. The Saalhof castle worked
as a seat of royal and later civil administration. Because of its location on a natural
alluvial land tongue that reached several metres into the river Main, it was suitable for
controlling navigation and trade. With regard to the water castle of Kaiserswerth on
the Rhine, the function of water toll collection is discussed. Mediaeval castles seem
to have been of great importance to delineate royal territory and to control and defend
important trade routes for inland navigation.
The rivers Danube and Main remain among the most important routes for inland
navigation today. Attempts to connect both river systems to bridge the European watershed were carried out in the Early Middle Ages by Charlemagne in 793 AD, who
initiated an ambitious canal project – the Fossa Carolina. Written sources describe
building the canal in detail as well as its failure. The constructive details of the threekilometre long canal and the question of its completion are the focus of an ongoing
project, „Fossa Carolina“, which combines archaeological and geo-archaeological
methods. Fieldwork showed that huge parts of the canal were buried under colluvial
sediments shortly after the digging, and they were never removed afterwards. Together
with the canal’s missing southern connection to the river Altmühl, this suggests that
the canal was really never finished. However, at least some parts of the approximately
five-metre wide canal fairway were ready to use and may have been navigable. The
banks of the canal were fixed with wooden embankments to prevent erosion. The
shallowest water depth was approximately 0.5 metres, which would have allowed
navigation by early mediaeval flat-bottomed ships.

The full waveform inversion (FWI) of strongly dispersive Love wave data is a challenging task. Amplitude, phase and dispersion information not only depends on the density and shear modulus distribution in the subsurface, but also significantly on intrinsic damping. This is especially a problem in near surface data applications with complex underground structures and low Qs values. Therefore, the FWI of a dispersive Love wavefield demands an accurate initial visco-elastic model and careful data pre-processing. Another key ingredient of a successful time-domain FWI is the sequential inversion of frequency filtered data in order to mitigate the non-linearity of the inverse problem. Common FWI strategies are based solely on either low-or bandpass filtered data. In this study we develop an FWI workflow consisting of a combined low-and bandpass filter strategy to achieve an appropriate data fit of the low-frequency Love wave and high-frequency refracted SH-wavefield. The applicability of this FWI strategy and the importance of a visco-elastic medium description is demonstrated for SH field data from a transect over the Fossa Carolina, a silted medieval canal structure in southern Germany. The resolved canal shape and small scale structures in the inversion results are verified by an archaeological excavation.

Charlemagne’s Canal. An Early Medieval Project of European Dimension

by Christoph Zielhofer, Lukas Werther, Peter Dietrich, Stefanie Berg-Hobohm, Peter Ettel

The Central European Watershed divides the
Rhine catchment and the Danube catchment.
In the Early Medieval period, when ships were
important means of transportation, Charlemagne
decided to link both catchments by the construction
of a canal. The Fossa Carolina would
have provided a continuous inland navigation
route from the North Sea to the Black Sea.
Despite the important geostrategic relevance
of the construction it is not clarified whether
the canal was actually used as a navigation
waterway. 14C dating and sapropel layers reveal
evidence of Carolingian and post-Carolingian
ponds. Geoarchaeological drillings, high-resolution
direct-push-sensing equipment and
archaeological excavations indicate a conceptual
size of the canal, which allows a crossing
passage of Carolingian cargo scows with a
payload of several tons. Our results indicate an
extraordinarily advanced construction level of a
summit canal. We have evidence for the artificial
Carolingian dislocation of the watershed
and assume a sophisticated Early Medieval
hydrological engineering concept for supplying
the summit of the canal with adequate water.

F. Daim/S. Albrecht/J. Chameroy/P. Ettel/D. Heher/P. Prohászka/L. Werther, Karl der Große und seine Vision – Archäologische und historische Schlaglichter. In: W. Pohl/M. Diesenberger/B. Zeller (Hrsg.), Neue Wege der Mittelalterforschung. Bilanz und Perspektiven. Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 22 (Wien 2018) 253–277.

The use of remote sensing techniques to identify (geo)archaeological features is wide spread. For archaeological prospection and geomorphological mapping, Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) on based LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) are mainly used to detect surface and subsurface features. LiDAR is a remote sensing tool that scans the surface with high spatial resolution and allows for the removal of vegetation cover with special data filters. Archaeological publications with LiDAR data in issues have been rising exponentially since the mid-2000s. The methodology of DTM analyses within geoarchaeological contexts is usually based on ªbare-earthº LiDAR data, although the terrain is often significantly affected by human activities. However, ªbare-earthº LiDAR data analyses are very restricted in the case of historic hydro-engineering such as irrigation systems, mills, or canals because modern roads, railway tracks, buildings, and earth lynchets influence surface water flows and may dissect the terrain. Consequently, a "natural" pre-modern DTM with high depth accuracy is required for palaeohydrological analyses. In this study, we present a GIS-based modelling approach to generate a pre-modern and topographically purged DTM. The case study focuses on the landscape around the Early Medieval Fossa Carolina, a canal constructed by Charlemagne and one of the major medieval engineering projects in Europe. Our aim is to reconstruct the pre-modern relief around the Fossa Carolina for a better understanding and interpretation of the alignment of the Carolingian canal. Our input data are LiDAR-derived DTMs and a comprehensive vector layer of anthropogenic structures that affect the modern relief. We interpolated the residual points with a spline algorithm and smoothed the result with a low pass filter. The purged DTM reflects the pre-modern shape of the landscape. To validate and ground-truth the model, we used the levels of recovered pre-modern soils and surfaces that have been buried by floodplain deposits, colluvial layers, or dam material of the Carolingian canal. We compared pre-modern soil and surface levels with the modelled pre-modern terrain levels and calculated the overall error. The modelled pre-modern surface fits with the levels of the buried soils and surfaces. Furthermore, the pre-modern DTM allows us to model the most favourable course of the canal with minimal earth volume to dig out. This modelled pathway corresponds significantly with the alignment of the Carolingian canal. Our method offers various new opportunities for geoarchaeological terrain analysis, for which an undisturbed high-precision pre-modern surface is crucial.

Early and high medieval inland watercraft were able to moor even on flat riverbanks without any constructions. The question of a harbour and the relevance of a river for a settlement is therefore also the question of river courses and banks in a particular period. To answer these questions, an interdisciplinary (geo)archaeological and geophysical point of view was applied within two case studies.
In Karlburg, the settlement is located on a flood-safe, Holocene floodplain-terrace of the Main – a potential flood would have to rise at least 1.5 m to threaten the settlement. A »buffer zone« next to the Main was apparently populated less intensively and marks the medieval shoreline area 40-100 m west of today’s river course. Boats could land at or even on the remaining naturally formed bank area. In the central area of Karlburg more complex constructions such as a quay may have supported Karlburg’s function as an Ufermarkt especially in the Carolingian period.
In the deserted settlement Mühlstatt, part of the royal palace complex Salz on the Franconian Saale, people lived on an elevated, flood-safe but riverine position on a calcite-cemented gravel layer / alluvial fan. Geological characteristics formed an anastomosing river with a largely constant river course over centuries. A simple, naturally formed landing
site with a gently sloping embankment about 1.5-2 m under today’s surface could be reconstructed there.

Big navigable canals – fossata magna – are crucial parts of the European harbour network in the 1st millennium AD. By means of canals, site conditions at transition zones of the transportation network were artificially modified. Water depths and fairway widths of canals reflect specific requirements regarding the accessibility of inland harbours and waterways in the adjacent transport zones. These requirements significantly depend on the size of ships. In our study we present a supraregional and diachronic comparative approach, integrating canal parameters and ship findings. Our pivotal point is the Fossa Carolina or fossatum magnum (Germany), constructed in 793 AD to bridge the main European watershed. The 8th-century Kanhave Canal was cut through an isthmus on Samsø island (Denmark) to avoid a lengthy detour and to offer direct access to a safe natural harbour. The Fossa Corbulonis, built around 50 AD by Roman military, bridged the watershed between the Rivers Waal and Maas (Netherlands) to avoid a dangerous coastal route.

In this manuscript we document a multidisciplinary approach in wetland geoarchaeology for detecting artificial structures in a middle European floodplain. By means of a large set of different prospection methods (cadastral analysis, aerial archaeology, LiDAR, SQUID based magnetic prospection, electrical resistivity tomography, seismic refraction tomography, ground penetrating radar) and a subsequent geoarchaeological drilling campaign we provide an overview about the potentials and limits of the applied methods. Our site-specific aims focus on the Fossa Carolina, Charlemagne's shortcut for linking the Rhine-Main and the Altmühl-Danube inland navigation systems during the Early Middle Ages. Our results show that Altmühl meander loops were quasi stable since Carolingian times and that an Altmühl floodplain-crossing trench of at least 650-700 m was required for linking the Altmühl River with the e archaeological known e southernmost position of the existing Carolingian canal. However, our large set of remote sensing and geophysical prospection tools and the corresponding drilling campaign do not show any evidence for the missing Carolingian trench within the Altmühl floodplain. Our results support the idea that the Carolingian canal was never entirely completed although large parts of the canal were almost finished in the northern sections.
Together with Kirchner, A., Zielhofer, C., Schneider, M., Linzen, S., Wilken, D., Wunderlich, T., Rabbel, W., Meyer, C., Schmidt, J., Schneider, B., Berg-Hobohm, S., Ettel, P.

Development and Topography of the Medieval Settlement Area Karlburg at the Bank of the Main
Written and archaeological sources give proof for a central function of Karlburg, especially in the Carolingian height of the complex. The valley floor settlement at the waterfront of the river Main with a far-reaching network of communication and exchange forms the nucleus of the conglomeration. Based on research for decades, the current study
complemented the previous knowledge about structure and extent of the settlement at the Main waterfront by means of georeferencing and analysis of existing excavations, remote sensing data, aerial images, historical maps as well as geographical and geophysical fieldwork. This interdisciplinary study is the starting point for the reconstruction of the
historical river bank and associated landing area. The classification of the Holocene terrace levels at the point bar illustrated that the early and high medieval river bank was located 40-100 m west of the modern bank of the river Main. Therefore, the harbour basin on a historic map of 1839 could not been projected back to the Middle Ages. In the synopsis, a continuous elongate landing site parallel to the settlement using the natural bank or perhaps also more complex installations is most likely for Karlburg.

Fossata Magna – A Canal Contribution to Harbour Construction in the 1st Millennium AD
Big navigable canals – fossata magna – are crucial parts of the European harbour network in the 1st millennium AD. By means of canals, site conditions at transition zones of the transportation network have been artificially modified. Water depths and fairway width of canals reflect specific requirements regarding the accessibility of inland harbours and waterways in the adjacent transport zones. These requirements significantly depend on the size of ships. In our study, we present a supra-regional and diachronic comparative approach integrating canal parameters and ship findings. Our pivotal point is the Fossa Carolina or fossatum magnum (Germany), constructed in 793 AD to bridge the main European watershed. The 8th century Kanhave canal was cut through an isthmus on Samsø Island (Denmark) to avoid a lengthy detour and to offer direct access to a safe natural harbour. The Fossa Corbulonis, built around 50 AD by roman military, bridges the watershed between the rivers Waal and Maas (Netherlands) to avoid a dangerous coastal route.

Together with Tristan Blazek, Tamara Bühler, Ria Katharina Frey, Dominique Gabler, Chiara Sava Raich, Charlott Biesenthal, Zdravka Foltin, Claus Gneiting, Marieluise Hahn, Barbara Hausmair, Simone Korolnik, Michael Scholz, Tim Unland.

In the summer of 1944, the Nazis launched the “Unternehmen Wüste” – a large-scale shale oil program in Baden-Württemberg that aimed to sustain a stable fuel supply for the German war effort. For thousands of prisoners the Nazis’ craving for oil lead to deportation, forced labour and death. The spatial entanglement of the “Unternehmen Wüste’s” concentration camps, labour exploitation and production facilities, and the impact of this Nazi industry on the local landscape have been investigated recently through the analyses of historical aerial imagery. The shale oil factory "Wüste 3" near Engstlatt/Bisingen, whose construction was already halted at the end of January 1945, is currently the subject of detailed historical-archaeological research by the University of Tübingen. Thanks to many years of voluntary field survey, an extensive inventory of finds from the dismantled industrial site has been recovered. These finds now are systematically analyzed as part of a research-led teaching project. A particular challenge is the chronological and functional classification of specific objects due to the lack of stratigraphic contexts. For this purpose, the finds were arranged into functional groups and studied in terms of their spatial distribution and inter-group correlations. A representative selection of objects was subjected to a detailed typological analysis employing a variety of pictorial and written sources as well as contemporary witness accounts. In addition to the quantitatively large find groups deriving from the factory infrastructure (e.g. rail nails and machine screws), tools and personal objects of people working at the site have a particularly informative potential for the reconstruction of the factory and the living and working conditions. The paper presents the methodology of the find analysis and adds object-oriented facets to the history of the “Wüste 3”-factory. It also aims to contribute to closing research gaps on production facilities of the Nazi era and to discuss questions of preservation and didactic use of the associated material remains.

The reconstruction and understanding of tipping points in human-environmental systems have become an important issue for the global geoscientific community. Regarding the past 11,700 years, the Holocene, once considered a warm and stable interval, is now known to be characterised by long-term and abrupt climatic changes. In this paper, we focus on the reconstruction of the Late Neolithic wetland occupation history at Pestenacker, an UNESCO world heritage site in the northern Alpine forelands of Central Europe (South Germany). We aim to recover and understand potential interactions between supra-regional climate forcing, a corresponding passing of a middle Holocene environmental tipping point and local socio-ecological response mechanisms. In this context, we review dendroarchaeological and radiocarbon data sets from Pestenacker and close-by Late Neolithic wetland sites and present newly conducted tree-ring and 14C age models featuring cumulative chronologies. Further, we compare the archaeological age models with high-resolution stratigraphical data and chronological records from the valley fills as well as prominent climatic proxy records.

AK Geomorphology 2020, Poster Presentation.  Together with Johannes Schmidt , Cathleen Kertscher , Markus Reichert , Helen Ballasus , Anne Köhler , Birgit Schneider , Elisabeth Dietze , Abdelfattah Benkkadour , Abdeslam Mikdad , Alexander Bolland , Eva-Barbara Suchan , Markus Fischer , Sylvain Pichat , Hans von Suchodoletz , William Fletcher , Steffen Mischke , Christoph Zielhofer

International Conference "Contesting Water Management and Water Rights. From the End of Antiquity to Industrialization", Lorsch, 2.-4. September 2019

Negotiating river exploitation was crucial in medieval and post-medieval England, France and Germany. Many different agents with competing interests participated in this process. In our talk, we will focus on three different topics: First, we will discuss the negotiation of river modifications and canal construction by local communities on a micro-scale, especially monastic communities and rival agents. These modifications affect the flow pattern of the river, the availability of hydro-energy, the established road network and also the navigability of the rivers themselves. Case studies such as Meaux Abbey in England will enlighten, how these competing interests have been negotiated and which physical remains have been preserved. Second, we will discuss conflicts which have been triggered by natural dynamics of the river itself, especially meandering. This instability has caused manifold conflicts with men-made physical remains, but also with social and economic structures such as rights, tolls and taxes, which are fixed in the landscape. How cities and lords have been dealing with this issue will be exemplified for the middle Loire river. Third, we will present a macro perspective. On a large spatial scale it is striking, that different river sections have been used for different purposes: mills and fisheries with dams cluster significantly at lower rank sections, whereas harbour installations and infrastructure for navigation clusters on higher rank sections. The highest potential for conflicts could be observed on river sections, where different interests overlap each other. This will be discussed for France based on a large newly developed digital dataset.

In our talk, we discuss nine case studies with archaeological features connected to inland harbours of the 8th -13th centuries: Großhöbing (Southeast Germany, 8th/9th cent. AD), San Vincenzo al Volturno (Italy, carolingian), Allensbach (Southwest Germany, c. 1100 AD), Seehausen (Northeast Germany, 13th-15th cent. AD), Frankfurt Saalhof (Germany, 13th/14th cent. AD), Konstanz (Southwest Germany, 10th-14th cent. AD),  Lübeck (North Germany, 12th/13th cent. AD), Tiel (Netherlands, 10th-12th cent. AD) and London (England, 9th/10th-14th cent. AD).

In the last years, Lake Sidi Ali has been object to fundamental palaeoenvironmental research. The analysis of a 20 m sediment core from the lake points to a strong anthropogenic impact in the last 2000 years, whereas the anthropogenic impact in earlier periods of the Holocene seems to be significantly weaker. Nevertheless, until recently there has been no on-site archaeological data to shed light on the anthropogenic use of the lake catchment and to contrast it with the core data. In our paper, we present first insights in the archaeological record in the lake catchment, which has been documented in 2016 during a survey campaign. There is a remarkable density of archaeological sites with a high quantity of lithic material at the surface, mostly dating to the Palaeolithic. Nevertheless, we also found archaeological features such as a fireplace in a gully at the northern lakeside presumably dating to the Neolithic which are covered by sediments. This feature dates to a period with almost no archaeological record in the Middle Atlas region. As the fireplace superimposes older lake sediments and is covered by younger colluvial layers, it does not only document the anthropogenic use of the lakeside, but also the environmental change in the lake catchment. Topmost, the modern land use and herding is documented by a surface find scatter as well as stone constructions of campgrounds and enclosures. We will present this archaeological data, compare the documented periods of use with the sediment core results and discuss perspectives for future research.

Thanks to a newly developed French-German database on antique and medieval fluvial infrastructures in the framework of the DFG project Inland harbours in central Europe as hubs for European communication networks, communication networks can be analysed based on the evolution of management strategies of rivers. We will present a comparative approach of harbour networks, concurrent uses of the fluvial landscape and the processes of decision-making based on case studies from Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

9. Deutscher Archäologiekongress des Deutschen Verbandes für Archäologie und der
Deutschen Altertumsverbände, Session "Arbeitskreis Spätantike und Frühes Mittelalter", Mainz, 7.7.2017.

Since 2012, the Priority Research Program ,Harbours" of the German Research Foundation focuses on the navigation network in the Roman and Medieval period between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. In the framework of this large-scale project, a data repository connected to a Web GIS has been developed.

According to Web of Science, the number of publications with LiDAR data in environmental science has grown exponentially since the mid-2000s as the availability of these datasets is increasing. From the archaeological point of view, remote sensing (images and elevation models) is a fast and nondestructive prospection tool to gain information about the location and extent of features. However, from the geomorphological point of view high resolution Digital Terrain Models (DTM) can be used to calculate flow directions and sediment connectivities. Though, anthropogenic structures like streets, buildings or archaeological features disrupt the natural terrain shape. Hence, hydrological modelling and geomorphological mapping with this depth of detail is impossible. To perform such analysis an improved purged DTM is generated using the modern DTM and a comprehensive layer of anthropogenic structures is used as mask. A Spline-interpolation is conducted with the residual points and afterwards smoothed by a low
pass filter. Despite planar changes, the purged DTM reflects the “quasi-natural” landscape shape. Validation is made by buried soils under the dug-out material from channel construction 793 AD. The modeled surface fits quite well to the truncated soil under the ramparts. In the case of Charlemagne's summit canal it is an important issue to  reconstruct the hydrological system as well as the pathway of the Early Medieval canal). We want to present the method to generate topographically-correct Digital Terrain Models, which can used to
perform spatial, GIS-based terrain analysis with high resolution.

Our recently accepted multisession panel at the IMC Leeds 2019 is aimed to provide a multidisciplinary approach – combining written sources, archaeological evidence and proxy data – on the use of water and wetlands at the end of the Early Middle Ages (8th - 10th century).