We may not realize it, but
landscape shapes our lives. In Denmark, like in many regions, the ice age (and
glaciation) carved out the land to the way it appears today with its grassy,
gently rolling hills and shallow valleys. The periods in which the thick ice
retreated and advanced changed the surrounding environment, and thus the early
peoples of Denmark had to learn to adapt and adjust to these changes.
Ultimately, like in most of the world's societies, these hunter gatherers began
to use the land to their advantage (through agriculture).
Visiting Lejre on our whistle
stop tour, we were able to walk through thousands of years of history, and it
really put everything into perspective. Denmark's hunter gatherers first began
by hunting what they could, and gathering edible flora. Overtime, they became
skilled hunters and once reindeer entered the region they began to hunt them. Often time they would stand on the top of each side of a hill and
shoot down to the herd of reindeer in the valley. A reindeer provided a lot of
food, and the hunters were able to make shelter from their pelts (as seen
below). Soon, however the reindeer went further north where it was colder, and
the hunter gatherers were left with a choice to either stay or adapt, or to
follow the reindeer north. Many stayed and adapted to new, warming conditions.
From here they migrated closer to bodies of water. Fishing and gathering became
the way of life (lots of oyster, mussels, fish), and the newly forming darker
forests provided a new place to live.
A reindeer hunter's shelter
If we fast forward a little more
in time, we would enter Denmark's Bronze Age (around 1650 to 1200 BC). In this
time, the early people of Denmark began to use the land to their benefit by
farming and domesticating animals. During this time a lot of tools and weapons
were created, and there is evidence of large amounts of deforestation. By being
able to use the landscape to their benefit, these once nomadic peoples now had
a food supply without the need to migrate. Once agriculture starts within any
region of the world, many things emerge. Complex societies form, people begin
to specialize in specific types of production, and conflict emerges. At Lejre we were able to see re-creations of Bronze
age clothing, in which wool was made from domesticated sheep and dyed using
plants found on the land (the colors blue and red were the most expensive and
showed a sign of wealth). After Denmark’s Bronze Age, came the Iron Age, named
for the large amounts of iron present in Denmark’s soil. From the soil, people
were able to extract the iron and use it for blacksmithing; this is a great
advantage because weapons and all types of tools could be made from the great
amounts of iron. However, the digging up of soil for iron probably had some type of impact on the land as did agriculture (human altering of the land).
Bronze age yarn and clothing
Lejre was a great place to
imagine what it might have been like through the amazing recreations on the
premises. All civilizations are shaped by their geography, which includes many factors
such as climate, the soils, the amount of precipitation, and the juxtaposition
to coastal areas or bodies of water. It is what distinguishes more northern
regions such as Denmark (at 55® North) to more equatorial regions such as say
Peru.
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