Bridge-Building and Nature Conservation on the Donau
Early Modern Bridges and Politics in Bavaria
On the second day of our field trip, we learned about Early Modern bridge-building in Bavaria. Martin Keßler’s talk focused on the politics of bridges, using as an example the bridge of Vilshofen, a small town near Passau. In the Middle Ages, Passau was an autonomous bishopric, independent from the duchy of Bavaria and archbishopric of Salzburg. It maintained its autonomy from Bavaria until 1802. Early Modern Bavaria included the lands between the rivers Lech to the west, the Danube to the north, and the Inn to the east. Within the territory of Bavaria there were many other stand-alone territories, for example imperial free cities like Augsburg and Nuremberg.
The bus ride from Munich to Deggendorf along the Isar river
The landscape en route from Munich to Deggendorf is dominated by the flat valley of the river Isar. The river has carried a lot of material from the Alps to the lower part of the river near Deggendorf. This is the reason the soil here consists of an eight-meter-thick layer of river sediment. The Isar valley is surrounded by hills, in a landscape where erodible brown soil has been heavily deposited. The colluvium from this landscape, combined with the river sediments, makes the area the perfect place for agriculture (primarily sugar beet and corn). The Mühlbogental is an area near Deggendorf which has become the focus of concentrated industry; here lies a paper mill, as well as a BMW production site that was built on subsidies to discourage migration out of the region.
To the south of Deggendorf the Isar flows into the Danube (Donau in German), which was, in former days, only constrained in its meandering by the Bavarian Forest (a cool, infertile, and mountainous range dominated by gneiss) in the north east. Today, many dikes bound the naturally wandering landscape of the Danube, and the ancient current is limited by a row of hydropower plants spanning the whole of the Danube’s course through Bavaria. Together, the hydropower plants in Bavaria produce around 15 percent of Germany’s electricity supply. All the best spots for these plants have been occupied, which means that the expansion of hydropower is only possible if the plants become more efficient (to reach the goal of 17 percent). The flood defenses around Deggendorf were first installed in the 18th century and have since been expanded and modernized. Throughout the year (especially around June and August) numerous small flood events (below HQ 30) hit the area, but the dikes and polders usually prevent severe damage to surrounding communities. Continue reading →
Route along the Danube. Photo modified from David McGregor, CC BY-SA 2.0
Winding through Central and Eastern Europe, the once longstanding frontier of the Roman empire, the Danube, has carved its way into the landscapes and cultures of the countries it traverses. But the marks of humans, imprints of the Anthropocene, are also clearly visible on the river itself—and on the ecologies and landscapes surrounding it. By uncovering and reading landmarks across time and place, the interactions between societies and rivers can be recounted from different perspectives as multifaceted environmental histories. Continue reading →
In May 2017, the University of Bologna’s Department of History and Culture hosted a workshop entitled “Household Consumption and Environmental Change in the Twentieth Century.” The workshop was co-convened by RCC alumnus Giacomo Parrinello (Sciences Po, Paris) and professor of contemporary history Paolo Capuzzo (University of Bologna). The event was co-sponsored by the RCC and the University of Bologna. Twelve scholars from the US, Germany, and Italy convened to discuss the links between consumer culture (and practices) in the household and ecological transformations on multiple spatial and temporal scales.
The papers, all pre-circulated in advance, were grouped into three panels: food and the kitchen, household technologies, and energy and the home. The three panels were preceded by an introduction by the conveners, which presented the central concern of the workshop: the apparent contradiction between awareness of negative ecological impact of mass consumption and the affects and identities embedded in consumer practices. Continue reading →
Inside the cave where the ivory sculptures were found.
The Blautopf in Blaubeuren (Baden-Württemberg). The blue color is the result of light scattering at the nanoscale limestone particles densely distributed in the water.
Old fashion—taken in the Archäopark Vogelherd (Swabian Alb).
The evolution of the genus Homo was influenced in part by the landscape in which early hominins lived. Important archaeological sites are often located in areas with very rough terrain and a rich supply of nutrients and trace elements. These two features could have led wandering animals on paths where early hominins could track them down and hunt them. Furthermore, the rough terrain made it easier for our ancestors to find shelter from predators.
The Lonetal area in the Swabian Alb is famous for its many artifacts from the Aurignacian culture (ca. 40,000–30,000 years ago). Among the discoveries are the oldest sculptures ever found, including a mammoth as well as a lion sculpture, both made out of mammoth ivory. Other findings include fragments of flutes that belong to the oldest humankind has made.
The workshop group: (from left to right) Christian Schnurr, Simon Kübler, Frank Brown, Geoffrey King, Geoff Bailey, and Anke Friedrich.
These photos were taken during a workshop held by the Rachel Carson Center and LMU’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences for students of the Environmental Studies Certificate Program. The field trip to the Swabian Alb included talks by Frank Brown (University of Utah), Geoffrey King (IPG Paris), Simon Kübler (LMU), Geoff Bailey (University of York), and Anke Friedrich (LMU).
In the “Making Tracks” series, RCC fellows and alumni present their experiences in environmental humanities, retracing the paths that led them to the Rachel Carson Center. For more information, please click here.
I am a child of the 1970s. My family might be called “back-to-the-landers.” In our kitchen, on the redwood shelves made from recycled chicken coops, sat Laurel’s Kitchen and the Tassajara Bread Book. My mother drove our VW bus down the long dirt road and into town to shop at the community co-op and the health food store. My mom bought “natural” food. She bought no-spray, wholegrain, brown food. We made our own yogurt and bread.
We also got a lot of food for free. We always had a garden, though it seemed to grow lots of zucchini and little else. Animals were a problem: raccoons ate our chickens, one by one. In some years, deer and feral pigs destroyed everything. We canned Gravenstein apples from the windfalls we picked up at the orchards that covered Western Sonoma County. We picked each year’s jam supply in the blackberry thickets down by the Russian River. Sometimes we got unpasteurized milk from a nearby dairy, and we went to the remaining chicken farmers for eggs (fertilized, memorably on one occasion with chicken embryos inside). One year my mom invested in a side of beef and we kept it in the cold storage in Sebastopol. My mom did not do these things to support local farmers. She did them because it was cheap and because it was “natural.” Continue reading →
