De verdwenen Eems, een participatieproject in het grensgebied

Samenvatting

The lost Ems, a participatory project in the border region. Since 2017, the GIA and NLD have conducted joint research into a fossil branch of the river Ems between Landegge (Ldkr. Emsland) and Sellingen (prov. Groningen), where this branch merged with the Runde system as the Ruiten Aa/Westerwoldsche Aa. As its flanking river dunes were intensively exploited by farming communities up to the middle/late Iron Age, this string of settlements became an umbilical cord linking the Westerwolde region with the Ems bank, especially after accelerated peat growth intensified the barrier posed by the Bourtanger Moor. Mapping the fossil river, its regime and riverbank occupation as well as its abandonment goes hand-in-hand with involving today’s landowners and local residents, explaining to them that there is more to the supposedly poor cultural history of this hinterland zone than the era of peatbog exploitation and the Emslandlager during WWII.