Danish Prehistoric Greenspaces

The Danish culture is one that has grown tremendously throughout its history. I believe that this fact is mostly due to their ability to adapt to significant change within their environment. They were also able to utilize the resources available to them.  As humans, the Danes were able to survive many times over because when faced with issues with their environment, they chose to overcome those obstacles opposed to giving up and dying out.

The rolling hills and flat lands of the Danish landscape have made the country a mostly agricultural environment although this was the case in prehistoric times. During this era, the Danes were considered hunters and gatherers. They would travel from place to place following their food as the herds migrated toward more favorable weather conditions. A prime example was when their primary food source, the rain deer, migrated north. They traveled so far north that it became impractical for the Danes to follow in pursuit and they eventually stopped chasing the rain deer altogether. The rain deer were able to do so because of their fur coat composed of hollow hairs allowing them to withstand the cold temperatures of the north. Since the Danes were not the type of people to sit down and starve to death, they found a new food source known as the aurochs and continued on with their lives as hunter gatherers. But with everything, all good things must come to an end eventually, and years down the road the aurochs became extinct. The Danes were once again faced with a choice; they could either find another source of food to follow from one area of the country to the next or to try something new. In the end they decided to try something that they had never done before and settle down and inadvertently mark the start of an agricultural society.

              

When the Danes made the transition from hunter gatherers to farmers, they utilized the flat nature of the land to plant crops and form a more stable food source to support their following. They used the fertile soil of the plains to establish farms and from there communities began to form and more and more individuals began to settle in these areas. Daily life for the Danes became dramatically different when they changed the way that they used the land. They began raising cattle soon after and no longer needed to worry about what area of the land they would need to travel to in order to survive.  As a result of the creation of a new civilization, the land was deforested by the Danes and the landscape was sculpted to suit the needs of a farming community. As a result, many of the rolling hills were flattened to accommodate favorable conditions for farming.

The Danish are a very innovative people and their ability to adapt to the offerings of the land proves that the landscape does affect them in a very significant and vice versa. Over their several thousand years of existence, they have changed their lifestyle to suit the needs and desires of their people based off of the offerings of their land. They have successfully adapted to a great deal of changes and their ability to do so proves that the landscape can have a profound effect on their survival.