The natural landscape around Hamburg

The first settlement The first people were already living in the area of Hamburg when the oldest ice-age began. People often had to change their living space because of the movements of the ice. 20 000 years ago the ice definitely disappeared from North-West-Germany. Then the people could settle permanently. At first it was very cold. The scenery looked like the arctic tundra. There were little birch trees and moss. Many reindeers grazed there in the summer. The people killed and ate them. Near the Alster and the Bille (two little streams) places were found where the hunters had spent the summer-time.

The development of the urban scenery:
The settlement in early history

In the first centuries AD the region around Hamburg was densely populated. Many large cemeteries were found in Fuhlsbüttel, Marmstorf, Ehestorf, Eißendorf und Langenbek. They are from the Sweben - a Germanic tribe. The Sweben came from Sweden. Later some of them went on to Southern Germany, Italy and Spain. Stellingen, Rellingen, Schnelsen and Hetlingen are names from the time when the Sweben lived there.

The natural landscape

In the course of the milleniums the climate changed several times. And with it the animal and plant world changed, too. Tropical primeval forests, deciduous and coniferous forests of the milder climate and arctic tundra changed with each other. Apart from that agriculture, cattle breeding and forestry changed the landscape completely.

The origin of the North German coastal heathland ( a dry and not very fertile region, higher than the adjoining marshy grounds)

About 500 000 years ago the climate in Northern Europe was as it is today on Greenland. There were many huge glaciers. Their icelayers were several hundred metres thick. The glaciers moved from Scandinavia to Central Europe. They took rocky masses and masses of earth with them to Northern Germany. The old surface of the earth became flat. The pieces of rocks and earth were ground by the pressure of the ice. The ground masses covered the original sandy soil. They turned into a fertile loamy soil. During this time - the ice-age - the climate changed several times. In warmer periods the glaciers melted, in colder periods they moved southwards again. Then they formed high ranges of hills.

The landscape during the Bronze Age

Since the Bronze Age the landscape has hardly changed. Only the Elbe and its tributaries went on changing their riverbeds. Old sandbanks and islands were torn off and new ones built. The only area that was good for settling in that time was the heathland. There was a lot of drinking water at its edges. From there people could get to the rivers that were full of fish. The area near the rivers was covered with sludge and often flooded. Its higher parts were covered with alder woods.

(This text was written in German by Madlene Behrens, grade 8a, and translated by the students of English, grade 9 I, with Mrs. Schuchard forming part of the COMENIUS-Project: THE REGIONS OF EUROPE: environment and food, supported by the European Union) Hamburg, 26th March 1998

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