Geochronology of Soils and Landforms in Cultural Landscapes on Aeolian Sandy Substrates, Based on Radiocarbon and Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dating (Weert, SE-Netherlands)

The landscape of the study area (fig. 1,2) is underlain by coversand, deposited during the Late Glacial of the Weichselian. In the Preboreal, aeolian processes reduced soil formation (Stichting voor Bodemkaratering, 1972) and from the Preboreal to the Atlantic a deciduous climax forest developed (Janssen, 1974). The geomorphology was a coversand landscape, composed of ridges (umbric podzols), coversand plains (gleyic podzols), coversand depressions (histic podzols) and small valleys (gleysols). The area was used by hunting people during the Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic (Nies, 1999). Analysis of the urnfield ‘Boshoverheide’, indicated that the population increased during the Bronze Age between 1000 and 400 BC to a community of several hundreds of people, living from forest grazing, shifting cultivation and trade (Bloemers, 1988). The natural deciduous forests gradually degraded into heath land. The deforestation accelerated soil acidification and affected the hydrology, which is reflected in drying out of ridges and wetting of depressions, promoting the development of histosols and histic podzols. Sustainable productivity on chemically poor sandy substrates required application of organic fertilizers, composed of a mixture of organic litter with animal manure with a very low mineral compound (Van Mourik et al., 2011a), produced in shallow stables (Vera, 2011). The unit plaggic anthrosol on the soil map of 1950 AD identifies the land surface, which was used for plaggen agriculture. At least since 1000 AD, heath management was regulated by a series of rules that aimed to protect the valuable heat lands against degradation (Vera, 2011). During the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries there was an increasing demand for wood and clear cutting transformed the majority of the forests in driftsand landscapes (Vera, 2011). The exposed landscape was subjected to wind erosion and accumulation which endangered heath, arable land and even farmhouses. As a consequence, umbric podzols, the natural climax soil under deciduous forests on coversand, degraded into larger scale driftsand landscapes, characterized by deflation plains (gleyic arenosols) and complexes of inland dunes (haplic arenosols) (Van Mourik et al., 2011b). In such driftsand landscapes, the majority of the podzolic soils in