MEMELAND – Molecular Ecology of Medieval Landscapes

European landscapes are shaped by a long interplay between nature and human activity. Today’s biodiversity reflects not only climate and ecological processes, but also centuries of land use, governance, and cultural practices. MEMELAND addresses a key gap in our understanding of this legacy by reconstructing biodiversity and land-use trajectories at the species level over the past two millennia - a period during which many prehistoric lowland systems were transformed into medieval and early modern landscapes.

To achieve this, MEMELAND combines cutting-edge molecular proxies with established archaeological and palaeoecological methods. The project analyses sediment cores from 50 pairs of lakes (100 sites), each consisting of one site located near documented elite or high-status medieval archaeological remains and a nearby control site with little or no comparable evidence. This paired-site design allows researchers to distinguish local variation from broader regional patterns and to test hypotheses related to the “medieval agricultural revolution,” demographic change, technological innovations (such as the heavy mouldboard plough), and evolving land-management practices across three contrasting archaeological zones: the non-Romanised north, central Europe, and Romanised northern Europe.