Project "Dwelling mounds and beach ridges in Butjadingen/Southern North Sea – settlement dynamics in a prograding coastal area during the Roman Iron Age" approved by the German Science Foundation (DFG)

Northern Butjadingen, situated between the Jade Bay and the Weser estuary, is characterised by a seaward shifting coastline during the Roman Imperial period, and forms one of the youngest landscapes in Germany. The shifted coastline was followed by dwelling mounds as well as flat settlements. Men reacted successively to the newly created areas with their settlement and economic behaviour and specifically preferred the elevated beach ridges. Thus, between the 1st and 3rd/4th centuries, dwelling mounds were built on at least three staggered beach ridges.

Due to the relatively sparse building activities during modern times and today in this region, many of these dwelling mounds are well preserved and only used as agricultural land. This provides optimal conditions for large-scale investigations to reconstruct the history of the landscape and settlement in the region.

Thanks to funding from the DFG, it is now possible to research the emergence of the new settlement land and the interaction between humans and nature in this coastal region since the Roman Imperial Period in detail and across disciplines under the direction of Dr. Annette Siegmüller and Dr. Friederike Bungenstock.