Connection Between the Geology and the Cultural Heritage
There are geological explanations for this. The morphological reason is that the landscape is relatively elevated with few crossing watercourses and marshy areas. The type of soil near the MSL is also significant. Here the soil is dominantly light and fertile, consisting of a mixture of sand and clay. The barrows, and therefore the areas inhabited in the Younger Stone Age and Bronze Age, are found exactly in the narrow belt between the clay-rich till landscape and the sandy outwash plain. These soil conditions were ideal for the farming people that settled here some 5000 years ago. The soil was fertile and yet light enough that it could be ploughed with the equipment available at that time. It is noteworthy that no significant Bronze Age finds have been made in the clay-rich, heavier soil of the moraine landscape behind the MSL. The narrow belt of land between the moraine landscape and the outwash plain was, until the land reforms in about 1800, intensively cultivated. This is in contrast to the dead ice landscape to the north and the heathlands of the outwash plain to the south.