History of Central European forests

Historical and contemporary human activity has profoundly influenced the composition of forests in the densely populated region of Central Europe.

The oldest evidence of human and forest interaction in Central Europe is the use of hand axes about 500 thousand years ago.

[citation needed] The degree of hemeroby (human influence) and the extent of the original natural state from so long ago is difficult to estimate.

Sedentary, Neolithic farmers of the Linear Pottery Culture, about 7 500 years ago, began to change the forested landscape massively.

In the Pleistocene epoch that followed, these fluctuations culminated in a number of extensive ice ages, which ended, in central Europe, around 12,000 years ago.

Central Europe was unforested at this time, except for local wooded areas of steppe and tundra which were covered by frost-resistant birch and pine.

But the classic refuge remained the Mediterranean region, where the sea made for a balanced climate and highly rugged mountain ranges partitioned different residual populations.

The determining factors for the speed with which tree species repopulated the clear areas, were e. g. the method of seed distribution, the duration of flowering, degree of frost resistance and their ability to absorb nutrients.

In the most recent section of the Quaternary period, the Holocene or postglacial epoch, the forests began to return, about 11 700 years ago, to the treeless, post-glacial steppes.

For Central Europe, there were ten phases as a rule (according to Franz Firbas), which are called pollen zones and given Roman numerals as part of the Blytt–Sernander sequence.

The great houses of the Linear Pottery culture already placed a high demand for wood on local forests which were still small and a few in number.

Alder (Alnus glutinosa) carrs arose in the marshy lowlands and spruce (Picea abies) reached the Harz Mountains.

For the first time since the last ice age beech (Fagus sylvatica), hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) and silver fir (Abies alba) are evident again.

Aided by the humid, maritime climate of Central Europe and an ability, even in old age, to add to its habitat, the beech (with its high crown plasticity) became the dominant tree species.

It is possible that at this time the establishment of potential natural vegetation came to an end however as human settlement spread across Central Europe and large herds of herbivores were roaming around.

[citation needed]Tacitus' Mediterranean homeland at that time had already been a cultural landscape for centuries, its forests cleared for fields, orchards and towns, to say nothing of the use of wood for home fires and maritime construction.

As the population density decreased a succession of forest communities began again in many areas, which had been strongly influenced by the economies of the Roman settlers.

The pollen analyses from this period show that the beech (Fagus sylvatica) spread out widely again, both in the areas deserted by the Romans, and along the Pomeranian Baltic coast and to southern Sweden.

The so-called Little Ice Age, with its particularly cold periods from 1570 to 1630 and 1675 to 1715, which was associated with catastrophic crop failures and disease, led to the desettlement of large areas of land into which secondary forest spread.

The destruction during and in the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War also led to the strong afforestation of formerly agricultural lands, in many parts of Germany the population only recovered to its 1600 level by 1800 or later.

This type of agricultural "intermediate use" (Zwischennutzung) had numerous variants, something that is reflected in the names they were given: Hackwald, Hauberge, Reutberge, Birkenberge and Schiffelland are the most common designations.

In addition, a range of industry processes required firewood as an energy source or as a raw material, for example: charcoal burning, glassmaking, salt production and mining with its associated hammer mills.

Large quantities of wood were needed for the process of salt mining, both for the construction of galleries as well as for the boiling pans (Sudpfannen) of the saltworks or salines.

Mining required three natural conditions: first, the presence of ores; second, large forests, needed for pit props and the wood for producing charcoal; and third, water power in the shape of rivers and streams.

What remained was a landscape whose devastation is still recognizable, for example, the treeless hill ridges, the moorland and the present distribution of tree species in the central European forests.

The dwindling forests that did not regenerate themselves led to erosion of the soils, including those suitable for agricultural, in the wake of which, fields and settlements had to be abandoned.

Due to the realization that coniferous forests naturally regenerate only with difficulty, the planting of conifer seeds was successfully attempted in the Middle Ages.

In the Black Forest huge quantities of timber were tied together to form rafts and exported to the Netherlands, where the wood was needed for shipbuilding.

Wood eventually became so scarce that, in winter, fence posts, steps and all kinds of wooden objects, that were expendable in the short term, were burned as firewood.

Often spruce which, compared to other tree species is less robust, experiences problems trying to rejuvenate itself on most sites where it grows today after having been artificially planted.