In January/February 1985 a German-South African expedition had the opportunity to repeat measurem... more In January/February 1985 a German-South African expedition had the opportunity to repeat measurements made by means of stakes planted in 1951 (Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition 1949-52) and 1966 (SANAE VII). Although the rediscovery of the old stakes had not been expected, the stakes could be identified and it was possible to derive movement vectors on the basis of old and heterogenic measurement data.The long-term movement rates established basically confirm and complement the values determined in 1951. The flow rates of 9,1 cm/a to 66.4 cm/a proved to be extremly low. Observations of the stake lengths showed very little accumulation in the fringe areas of the blue ice-field (ca. 0.7 to 2.6 cm/a snow/firn); on bare ice an ablation of 2.6 cm/a water equivalent (2.9 cm/a ice) was measured. The paper begins with a description of the essential conditions for the formation of the blue ice-field. Subsequently the measurements are explained in detail and their results are discussed.
This paper first provides an overview of the cartographic work performed so far on Neuschwabenlan... more This paper first provides an overview of the cartographic work performed so far on Neuschwabenland (New Schwabenland) and the German and foreign names assigned there (see annexes 1 and 2). This is followed by comments on the revision of the air photography routes of the German Antarctic Expedition of 1938/39 (see annexes 3-7) which had become possible through the discovery of more than 600 oblique airphotos made by this expedition. (100 of which cover western and central Neuschwabenland. They are published for the first time as an addendum to this paper.)With the oblique airphotos on hand, and the reconstruction of the flight paths, the conditions were given for a better identification of the 96 features bearing German names and thus for a revision of the stock of German names in Neuschwabenland. The results of these efforts will be discussed in the last main section of this paper, and for 87 identified features the presently valid coordinates are given as determined in current maps. The orthography of these names follows the current rules for the spelling ofgeographic names. Complementary data are given on altitude, variant names, reason for the name given, as well as the date of discovery resp. naming in correspondence to the structure of the "Digital Name Data Base Antarctica" of the Institut für Angewandte Geodäsie (see extract from the name file in the appendix). Moreover, most features resp. areas bearing German names are illustrated by means of oblique airphotos from January 1939 in the photo addendum (pictures 1-100) and their location and extent are shown in several LANDSAT satellite images of Neuschwabenland (see annexes 8-17).
This paper first provides an overview of the cartographic work performed so far on Neuschwabenlan... more This paper first provides an overview of the cartographic work performed so far on Neuschwabenland (New Schwabenland) and the German and foreign names assigned there (see annexes 1 and 2). This is followed by comments on the revision of the air photography routes of the German Antarctic Expedition of 1938/39 (see annexes 3-7) which had become possible through the discovery of more than 600 oblique airphotos made by this expedition. (100 of which cover western and central Neuschwabenland. They are published for the first time as an addendum to this paper.)With the oblique airphotos on hand, and the reconstruction of the flight paths, the conditions were given for a better identification of the 96 features bearing German names and thus for a revision of the stock of German names in Neuschwabenland. The results of these efforts will be discussed in the last main section of this paper, and for 87 identified features the presently valid coordinates are given as determined in current maps...
Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 268 "Kulturentwicklung und Sprachgeschichte im Naturraum Westafrikanische Savanne", 1997
The largely hilly and mountainous Tangale-Waja region is situated at the northem margin of the Ni... more The largely hilly and mountainous Tangale-Waja region is situated at the northem margin of the Nigerian middle-belt. The combination of multifarious environmental factors with historical and socio-cultural developments has brought about heterogeneous modes of production and settlement. While in pre-colonial times the various ethnic groups preferred to settle on hills and mountain-slopes, since the 1940s a general down-hill migration and the establishment of new settlements in the plains took place. Simultaneously the influx of ethnic groups from other regions (especially Hausa and Fulani) grew significantly and continues to do so up to today. The heavy increase of the population resulted in an escalating pressure on the available natural resources. The economic activities of the population such as land clearing, cutting of frrewood and grazing had a devastating effect on the natural vegetation cover in many areas and it led to partly irreversible soil erosion and the expulsion or even extinction of wild animals. The implementation of adjusted programmes for rural development is required in order to foster more sustainable modes of land use. The major form of agrarian land use in the region is rainfed agriculture with special relevance assigned to valley bottoms (fadamas) and terraced slopes. Irrigated agriculture is successfully practised only at a few locations where water is available for a Ionger period along streams and rivers. The soil is worked either by hoe or, less frequently, by ox-driven ploughs. Besides useful plants typical for West African savannah regions like maize, sorghum, millet, beans and groundnuts, which serve mainly for subsistence purposes, nowadays also cash crops like cotton, tomatoes and pepper are cultivated. Cattle, goats and sheep are grazed on areas not used for cultivation. Only the cattle-rearing of the Fulani may be considered as having an increasing marketing potential. Other forms of land use that can be found in the region are the utilisation of trees (fruits, leaves, wood) and the hunting of wild animals. Apart from agriculture, the practice of crafts like pottery and blacksmithing should be mentioned as a source of income.
The craggy and hilly Muri Mountains, which are situated to the north of the Benue Lowlands, are a... more The craggy and hilly Muri Mountains, which are situated to the north of the Benue Lowlands, are an area with a complex pattern of settlement. This roughly 80 km long and 20 km wide mountainous area is inhabited by about 20 ethnic groups belonging to different language families. The present ethnic and linguistic situation is understood as the result of a complex series of migrations and adaptations to the natural environment. This paper will describe actual movements of settlements and consider certain conditions which may have been relevant in the decision to leave a settlement or choose a new one. The most important conditions will be the accessibility of arable land and/or pasture, accessibility of water, and conditions dependent on the historical and political context such as affording of security and possibility of defence. Therefore an interdisciplinary approach seems to be appropriate to evaluate the natural conditions for settlement and cultivation of the various places from a geographer´s point of view, to interrogate into the historical aspects and motifs of the settlement patterns and migrations with a thorough ethnological background, as well as to gain additional information from a linguistic analysis of toponymes and contact phenomena of the languages spoken in the area.
ABSTRACT Throughout the Holocene living conditions in the Chad basin have strongly been influence... more ABSTRACT Throughout the Holocene living conditions in the Chad basin have strongly been influenced by various transgressions and regressions of Lake Chad. In this article we concentrate on selected lake levels and climate fluctuations which had major implications on the settlement history during the later Holocene millennia. These are the ca. 287-290m-transgression which ended around 3000BP/1000 BC, the 285/286m-level which was reached several times during the last 3 millennia, and finally oscillations during the last two centuries which are recorded in travellers and colonial reports as well as modern collections of environmental data. The reconstruction and cartographic representation of the extent of these former lakes are based on the interpretation of detailed topographic maps, satellite images, various thematic and historic maps and the evaluation of a digital elevation model. Geographical information is then compared with archaeological and historical data and the effects of the lake level changes on the settlement and political history are evaluated. It becomes apparent that human response to environmental change is multifaceted and complex. Although certain repetitive patterns are evident throughout recorded history (12th century AD to present), the effects are very much dependent on the particular historic circumstances prevailing at the respective points in time.
ABSTRACT La recherche comparative sur l'histoire des langues tchadiques, en particulier s... more ABSTRACT La recherche comparative sur l'histoire des langues tchadiques, en particulier sur le lexique tchadique, est arrivée à un stade où l'on peut entreprendre un classement plus précis des formes existantes. La méthode comparative historique a permis de dégager trois groupes essentiels de zoonymes au sein du tchadique : (1) des termes purement tchadiques qui peuvent avoir des correspondants dans d'autres langues chamito-sémitiques, termes qui ont été partiellement empruntés par les peuples voisins qui parlent des langues non tchadiques ; (2) des emprunts anciens introduits dans le tchadique ; (3) des emprunts récents qui sont le fruit de processus super-structurels plus récents. Les résultats du travail de comparaison historique effectué jusqu'à présent peuvent être traités suivant la méthode employée en géographie linguistique. Ainsi avons-nous fait les premiers pas en vue de la constitution d'un atlas linguistique d'Afrique soudano-sahélienne (Alass). En cartographiant les divers groupes lexicaux, on obtient des schémas de distribution différents qui permettent de mieux comprendre les phénomènes de contact entre les peuples de langues tchadiques et non tchadiques, dans une perspective historique. C'est la raison pour laquelle nous cherchons à mettre en évidence divers ensembles d'isoglosses à mettre en rapport avec des informations géographiques, zoologiques et ethnologiques. A titre d'exemple, nous présentons dans cet article des cartes linguistiques portant sur le domaine de la zoonymie. (Résumé d'auteur)
A set of Landsat-5 multispectral scanner (MSS) images of Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf was commissione... more A set of Landsat-5 multispectral scanner (MSS) images of Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf was commissioned by the Institut für Angewandte Geodäsie and recorded over a short period in early 1986. A mosaic of digitally enhanced images was constructed, using all available ground control. In due course it is planned to use the data for the production of a series of digital-image maps at a scale of 1:1 000 000. Meanwhile a line map has been prepared at a scale of 1 :2 000 000 to show the principal glaciological features. The new mosaic shows much more detail than earlier Landsat images and extends coverage to higher latitudes. More of the poorly known southern boundary of the ice shelf can be identified but floating ice still extends beyond the limit of coverage. Extensive ice rumples are revealed, many of them undetected in earlier imagery. Flow bands can be tracked without a break from their ice-stream source to the ice front, over distances of up to 800 km. Even minor tributaries, and sheet f...
A visible sign of recent climate change and the rise in global temperatures over the past decades... more A visible sign of recent climate change and the rise in global temperatures over the past decades is the, in places, dramatic retreat of the snow and ice cover in many parts of the polar regions. Likely the only exceptions are the high-polar arid zones of the Antarctic continent and specifically of the inner plateau of East Antarctica. However, recent local indications point to a decrease in glaciation and snow cover along the East Antarctic coastal zone. This finding in turn may call into question whether the transition zone between the low coastal regions and the high polar plateau is affected as well. Mountain ranges encountered within this incline area of the polar plateau, for example the mountain ranges of Neuschwabenland (within the Antarctic sector Dronning Maud Land), present a good opportunity to examine this question. The observation of climate-related changes in Neuschwabenland is made possible because of the aerial photography first conducted in 1939. Within the mountai...
In January/February 1985 a German-South African expedition had the opportunity to repeat measurem... more In January/February 1985 a German-South African expedition had the opportunity to repeat measurements made by means of stakes planted in 1951 (Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition 1949-52) and 1966 (SANAE VII). Although the rediscovery of the old stakes had not been expected, the stakes could be identified and it was possible to derive movement vectors on the basis of old and heterogenic measurement data.The long-term movement rates established basically confirm and complement the values determined in 1951. The flow rates of 9,1 cm/a to 66.4 cm/a proved to be extremly low. Observations of the stake lengths showed very little accumulation in the fringe areas of the blue ice-field (ca. 0.7 to 2.6 cm/a snow/firn); on bare ice an ablation of 2.6 cm/a water equivalent (2.9 cm/a ice) was measured. The paper begins with a description of the essential conditions for the formation of the blue ice-field. Subsequently the measurements are explained in detail and their results are discussed.
This paper first provides an overview of the cartographic work performed so far on Neuschwabenlan... more This paper first provides an overview of the cartographic work performed so far on Neuschwabenland (New Schwabenland) and the German and foreign names assigned there (see annexes 1 and 2). This is followed by comments on the revision of the air photography routes of the German Antarctic Expedition of 1938/39 (see annexes 3-7) which had become possible through the discovery of more than 600 oblique airphotos made by this expedition. (100 of which cover western and central Neuschwabenland. They are published for the first time as an addendum to this paper.)With the oblique airphotos on hand, and the reconstruction of the flight paths, the conditions were given for a better identification of the 96 features bearing German names and thus for a revision of the stock of German names in Neuschwabenland. The results of these efforts will be discussed in the last main section of this paper, and for 87 identified features the presently valid coordinates are given as determined in current maps. The orthography of these names follows the current rules for the spelling ofgeographic names. Complementary data are given on altitude, variant names, reason for the name given, as well as the date of discovery resp. naming in correspondence to the structure of the "Digital Name Data Base Antarctica" of the Institut für Angewandte Geodäsie (see extract from the name file in the appendix). Moreover, most features resp. areas bearing German names are illustrated by means of oblique airphotos from January 1939 in the photo addendum (pictures 1-100) and their location and extent are shown in several LANDSAT satellite images of Neuschwabenland (see annexes 8-17).
This paper first provides an overview of the cartographic work performed so far on Neuschwabenlan... more This paper first provides an overview of the cartographic work performed so far on Neuschwabenland (New Schwabenland) and the German and foreign names assigned there (see annexes 1 and 2). This is followed by comments on the revision of the air photography routes of the German Antarctic Expedition of 1938/39 (see annexes 3-7) which had become possible through the discovery of more than 600 oblique airphotos made by this expedition. (100 of which cover western and central Neuschwabenland. They are published for the first time as an addendum to this paper.)With the oblique airphotos on hand, and the reconstruction of the flight paths, the conditions were given for a better identification of the 96 features bearing German names and thus for a revision of the stock of German names in Neuschwabenland. The results of these efforts will be discussed in the last main section of this paper, and for 87 identified features the presently valid coordinates are given as determined in current maps...
Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 268 "Kulturentwicklung und Sprachgeschichte im Naturraum Westafrikanische Savanne", 1997
The largely hilly and mountainous Tangale-Waja region is situated at the northem margin of the Ni... more The largely hilly and mountainous Tangale-Waja region is situated at the northem margin of the Nigerian middle-belt. The combination of multifarious environmental factors with historical and socio-cultural developments has brought about heterogeneous modes of production and settlement. While in pre-colonial times the various ethnic groups preferred to settle on hills and mountain-slopes, since the 1940s a general down-hill migration and the establishment of new settlements in the plains took place. Simultaneously the influx of ethnic groups from other regions (especially Hausa and Fulani) grew significantly and continues to do so up to today. The heavy increase of the population resulted in an escalating pressure on the available natural resources. The economic activities of the population such as land clearing, cutting of frrewood and grazing had a devastating effect on the natural vegetation cover in many areas and it led to partly irreversible soil erosion and the expulsion or even extinction of wild animals. The implementation of adjusted programmes for rural development is required in order to foster more sustainable modes of land use. The major form of agrarian land use in the region is rainfed agriculture with special relevance assigned to valley bottoms (fadamas) and terraced slopes. Irrigated agriculture is successfully practised only at a few locations where water is available for a Ionger period along streams and rivers. The soil is worked either by hoe or, less frequently, by ox-driven ploughs. Besides useful plants typical for West African savannah regions like maize, sorghum, millet, beans and groundnuts, which serve mainly for subsistence purposes, nowadays also cash crops like cotton, tomatoes and pepper are cultivated. Cattle, goats and sheep are grazed on areas not used for cultivation. Only the cattle-rearing of the Fulani may be considered as having an increasing marketing potential. Other forms of land use that can be found in the region are the utilisation of trees (fruits, leaves, wood) and the hunting of wild animals. Apart from agriculture, the practice of crafts like pottery and blacksmithing should be mentioned as a source of income.
The craggy and hilly Muri Mountains, which are situated to the north of the Benue Lowlands, are a... more The craggy and hilly Muri Mountains, which are situated to the north of the Benue Lowlands, are an area with a complex pattern of settlement. This roughly 80 km long and 20 km wide mountainous area is inhabited by about 20 ethnic groups belonging to different language families. The present ethnic and linguistic situation is understood as the result of a complex series of migrations and adaptations to the natural environment. This paper will describe actual movements of settlements and consider certain conditions which may have been relevant in the decision to leave a settlement or choose a new one. The most important conditions will be the accessibility of arable land and/or pasture, accessibility of water, and conditions dependent on the historical and political context such as affording of security and possibility of defence. Therefore an interdisciplinary approach seems to be appropriate to evaluate the natural conditions for settlement and cultivation of the various places from a geographer´s point of view, to interrogate into the historical aspects and motifs of the settlement patterns and migrations with a thorough ethnological background, as well as to gain additional information from a linguistic analysis of toponymes and contact phenomena of the languages spoken in the area.
ABSTRACT Throughout the Holocene living conditions in the Chad basin have strongly been influence... more ABSTRACT Throughout the Holocene living conditions in the Chad basin have strongly been influenced by various transgressions and regressions of Lake Chad. In this article we concentrate on selected lake levels and climate fluctuations which had major implications on the settlement history during the later Holocene millennia. These are the ca. 287-290m-transgression which ended around 3000BP/1000 BC, the 285/286m-level which was reached several times during the last 3 millennia, and finally oscillations during the last two centuries which are recorded in travellers and colonial reports as well as modern collections of environmental data. The reconstruction and cartographic representation of the extent of these former lakes are based on the interpretation of detailed topographic maps, satellite images, various thematic and historic maps and the evaluation of a digital elevation model. Geographical information is then compared with archaeological and historical data and the effects of the lake level changes on the settlement and political history are evaluated. It becomes apparent that human response to environmental change is multifaceted and complex. Although certain repetitive patterns are evident throughout recorded history (12th century AD to present), the effects are very much dependent on the particular historic circumstances prevailing at the respective points in time.
ABSTRACT La recherche comparative sur l'histoire des langues tchadiques, en particulier s... more ABSTRACT La recherche comparative sur l'histoire des langues tchadiques, en particulier sur le lexique tchadique, est arrivée à un stade où l'on peut entreprendre un classement plus précis des formes existantes. La méthode comparative historique a permis de dégager trois groupes essentiels de zoonymes au sein du tchadique : (1) des termes purement tchadiques qui peuvent avoir des correspondants dans d'autres langues chamito-sémitiques, termes qui ont été partiellement empruntés par les peuples voisins qui parlent des langues non tchadiques ; (2) des emprunts anciens introduits dans le tchadique ; (3) des emprunts récents qui sont le fruit de processus super-structurels plus récents. Les résultats du travail de comparaison historique effectué jusqu'à présent peuvent être traités suivant la méthode employée en géographie linguistique. Ainsi avons-nous fait les premiers pas en vue de la constitution d'un atlas linguistique d'Afrique soudano-sahélienne (Alass). En cartographiant les divers groupes lexicaux, on obtient des schémas de distribution différents qui permettent de mieux comprendre les phénomènes de contact entre les peuples de langues tchadiques et non tchadiques, dans une perspective historique. C'est la raison pour laquelle nous cherchons à mettre en évidence divers ensembles d'isoglosses à mettre en rapport avec des informations géographiques, zoologiques et ethnologiques. A titre d'exemple, nous présentons dans cet article des cartes linguistiques portant sur le domaine de la zoonymie. (Résumé d'auteur)
A set of Landsat-5 multispectral scanner (MSS) images of Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf was commissione... more A set of Landsat-5 multispectral scanner (MSS) images of Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf was commissioned by the Institut für Angewandte Geodäsie and recorded over a short period in early 1986. A mosaic of digitally enhanced images was constructed, using all available ground control. In due course it is planned to use the data for the production of a series of digital-image maps at a scale of 1:1 000 000. Meanwhile a line map has been prepared at a scale of 1 :2 000 000 to show the principal glaciological features. The new mosaic shows much more detail than earlier Landsat images and extends coverage to higher latitudes. More of the poorly known southern boundary of the ice shelf can be identified but floating ice still extends beyond the limit of coverage. Extensive ice rumples are revealed, many of them undetected in earlier imagery. Flow bands can be tracked without a break from their ice-stream source to the ice front, over distances of up to 800 km. Even minor tributaries, and sheet f...
A visible sign of recent climate change and the rise in global temperatures over the past decades... more A visible sign of recent climate change and the rise in global temperatures over the past decades is the, in places, dramatic retreat of the snow and ice cover in many parts of the polar regions. Likely the only exceptions are the high-polar arid zones of the Antarctic continent and specifically of the inner plateau of East Antarctica. However, recent local indications point to a decrease in glaciation and snow cover along the East Antarctic coastal zone. This finding in turn may call into question whether the transition zone between the low coastal regions and the high polar plateau is affected as well. Mountain ranges encountered within this incline area of the polar plateau, for example the mountain ranges of Neuschwabenland (within the Antarctic sector Dronning Maud Land), present a good opportunity to examine this question. The observation of climate-related changes in Neuschwabenland is made possible because of the aerial photography first conducted in 1939. Within the mountai...
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settle on hills and mountain-slopes, since the 1940s a general down-hill migration and the establishment of new settlements in the plains took place. Simultaneously the influx of ethnic groups from other regions (especially Hausa and Fulani) grew significantly and continues to do so up to today. The
heavy increase of the population resulted in an escalating pressure on the available natural resources. The economic activities of the population such as land clearing, cutting of frrewood and grazing had a devastating effect on the
natural vegetation cover in many areas and it led to partly irreversible soil erosion and the expulsion or even extinction of wild animals. The implementation of adjusted programmes for rural development is required in order to foster more sustainable modes of land use.
The major form of agrarian land use in the region is rainfed agriculture with special relevance assigned to valley bottoms (fadamas) and terraced slopes. Irrigated agriculture is successfully practised only at a few locations where water is available for a Ionger period along streams and rivers. The
soil is worked either by hoe or, less frequently, by ox-driven ploughs. Besides useful plants typical for West African savannah regions like maize, sorghum, millet, beans and groundnuts, which serve mainly for subsistence purposes, nowadays also cash crops like cotton, tomatoes and pepper are
cultivated. Cattle, goats and sheep are grazed on areas not used for cultivation. Only the cattle-rearing of the Fulani may be considered as having an increasing marketing potential. Other forms of land use that can be found in the region are the utilisation of trees (fruits, leaves, wood) and the hunting of wild animals. Apart from agriculture, the practice of crafts like pottery and blacksmithing should be mentioned as a source of income.
settle on hills and mountain-slopes, since the 1940s a general down-hill migration and the establishment of new settlements in the plains took place. Simultaneously the influx of ethnic groups from other regions (especially Hausa and Fulani) grew significantly and continues to do so up to today. The
heavy increase of the population resulted in an escalating pressure on the available natural resources. The economic activities of the population such as land clearing, cutting of frrewood and grazing had a devastating effect on the
natural vegetation cover in many areas and it led to partly irreversible soil erosion and the expulsion or even extinction of wild animals. The implementation of adjusted programmes for rural development is required in order to foster more sustainable modes of land use.
The major form of agrarian land use in the region is rainfed agriculture with special relevance assigned to valley bottoms (fadamas) and terraced slopes. Irrigated agriculture is successfully practised only at a few locations where water is available for a Ionger period along streams and rivers. The
soil is worked either by hoe or, less frequently, by ox-driven ploughs. Besides useful plants typical for West African savannah regions like maize, sorghum, millet, beans and groundnuts, which serve mainly for subsistence purposes, nowadays also cash crops like cotton, tomatoes and pepper are
cultivated. Cattle, goats and sheep are grazed on areas not used for cultivation. Only the cattle-rearing of the Fulani may be considered as having an increasing marketing potential. Other forms of land use that can be found in the region are the utilisation of trees (fruits, leaves, wood) and the hunting of wild animals. Apart from agriculture, the practice of crafts like pottery and blacksmithing should be mentioned as a source of income.