The countryside is marked by artificial hills, called es or esch, which were formed by depositing dung mixed with dirt.

During World War II the village was bombed by Allied fighters strafing the retreating German forces.

Numerous radiocarbon dates, optically stimulated luminescence dates, pollen analyses, and archaeological evidence from a number of locations have been interpreted to show that the Usselo Soil formed as the result of pedogenesis during a period of landscape stability during the Allerød oscillation.

Locally, the period of landscape stability and pedogenesis associated with the formation of the Usselo Soil continued into the Younger Dryas stadial.

[3][4][5] Proponents of the widely disputed Younger Dryas impact hypothesis (YDIH) proposed that the abundant charcoal, which is found in the Usselo Soil, and contemporaneous Lateglacial paleosols and organic sediments across Europe, may have been created by wildfires caused by a large bolide impact.

This conclusion is based upon the reported occurrence of alleged extraterrestrial impact indicators and hypothetical correlations with Clovis-age organic beds in North America.