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oa Verdwenen bos opnieuw op de kaart
Aanzet tot een landelijke kartering van bos in het laatmiddeleeuwse landschap aan de hand van bos-gerelateerde plaatsnamen
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Tijdschrift voor Historische Geografie, Volume 7, Issue 1, mrt. 2022, p. 44 - 64
Samenvatting
Vanished forest back on the map
Mapping woodland in the late medieval Netherlands based on the distribution of woodland-related place names
In the Netherlands plans are being developed to increase woodland substantially. But where? And what should new stretches of woodland be like to fulfill their intended functions? Historical information may help answering these questions. However, only for the period after 1850 detailed nation-wide cartographic information is available. Initiated by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (rce) a big data analysis was carried out on a national scale to gain insight in the distribution and character of woodland in the late medieval period (1000-1500). Starting point was a database containing all 6284 Dutch place names. Medieval place names that refer to (the use of) woodland in general or to specific types of woodland were selected and mapped. The resulting distribution shows interesting regional differences but is distorted and incomplete. The next step is to supplement it by using national inventories of ‘ancient woodland’, historically known medieval woods, archaeological data on medieval charcoal burning sites and perhaps also known sites of ‘ancient woodland’ plant species. Regional inventories of field names will then be used to validate resulting spatial patterns.