Waterside markets, terps, Geest fringe castles. The development of various settlement types in the coastal area in relation to the palaeo-topography of the 1st millennium

Abstract

Various settlement types often of differing economic basis emerge during the 1st millennium in the coastal area of the southern North Sea. The origins of this development are the settlements in the clay district areas which were gradually elevated to terp settlements, and their direct contact to the people living on the Pleistocene sandy ground (»Geest«). Constantly changing traffic routes and the natural environment were of crucial importance in this process. Especially the proximity to navigable watercourses encouraged the economic specialisation of individual parts of the settlements. In this regard, the width of the clay belt running between the edge of the Geest and the coastline is an essential factor. In the direct surrounding of the watercourses regional elites enabled the construction of fortifications on the edge of the Geest (»Geest boundary fortifications«); they are also likely to have exercised control over associated harbours. By contrast, the wide clay district areas saw increasingly specialised industrial activities in some terps (»trading-terps«), thereby detaching themselves from the primarily agrarian economy of the settlements in the clay district area. Finally in the High Middle Ages, trading-terps and Geest boundary fortifications constituted the vertebrae of offshore merchant shipping.