I only wish to remark that these heathland reclamations were responsible for the destruction of the vast majority of barrow cemeteries.
Up until the last century, the region was dominated by extensive heathlands, which often covered more than half the village area.
Only those on the marginal heathlands remain and these are destroyed in the heathland reclamations of the 19th century.
The witches' meeting places were to be found on heathland and the hares which were associated with -witches also lived there.
Before the heathland reclamations, the village areas consisted of small, closed villages with around them the fields (essen), the communal grazing lands and the forests.
Additional sets of samples were taken from forestry plantations on former heathland sites, where these species were known to occur.
In the 19th century, there was another radical transformation of the landscape with the wholesale reclamation of the heathlands.
Due to the soil disturbance during tree planting, the afforested sites could not be classified into the three heathland vegetation types.
