{"id":11499,"date":"2026-03-09T16:47:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/?p=11499"},"modified":"2026-03-09T16:47:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:47:42","slug":"the-teutonic-ur-forest-is-a-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/2026\/03\/09\/the-teutonic-ur-forest-is-a-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Teutonic ur-forest is a myth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-03-dense-dark-forests-europe-modern.html\">Dense forests in Europe are a modern invention<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nThe study is based on a large synthesis of independent lines of evidence. The researchers reviewed paleoecological studies covering the last 23 million years and combined multiple scientific &#8220;proxies&#8221; that reveal past vegetation structure and ecological processes. These included pollen records, plant macrofossils, charcoal particles from ancient fires, stable-isotope analyses of herbivore teeth and bones, fossil insects and mammals, and ancient environmental DNA preserved in sediments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Each type of proxy offers its own perspective, but together they let us see whether the landscapes were covered by dense forests, open grasslands, or a mix of the two. By combining these datasets across time\u2014from the Miocene to the pre-industrial era\u2014we could trace long-term changes in vegetation and the role of large herbivores with much greater confidence than earlier studies that used only one method,&#8221; explains the study&#8217;s lead author, ECONOVO Ph.D. student Szymon Czyzewski of Aarhus University.<\/p>\n<p>The conclusion is clear: across this long period, the typical landscape was a dynamic tree- and flower-rich mosaic, where large wild herbivores such as elephants, rhinoceroses, aurochs and bison kept vegetation semi-open and diverse\u2014and this was the case in temperate climates similar to those prevalent in Europe today, as well as in warmer and in cooler climates.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nI wonder how much of this idea of the ur-forest is due to all that romantic 18th and 19th century Germanic nationalism? On the practical side, having a dense forest is also much easier than trying to reintroduce large herbivores like rhinos into European landscapes&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dense forests in Europe are a modern invention: The study is based on a large synthesis of independent lines of evidence. The researchers reviewed paleoecological studies covering the last 23 million years and combined multiple scientific &#8220;proxies&#8221; that reveal past vegetation structure and ecological processes. These included pollen records, plant macrofossils, charcoal particles from ancient [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natural-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11500,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11499\/revisions\/11500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}