The landscape archives show two dimensions: a ho-
rizontal and a vertical.
3.1. Horizontal landscape archives are pointing to
the fact that spatial distribution of the sur-
face phenomena learns about physical and human pro-
cesses. The following schematic representation
shows the arrangement of the landscape elements ty-
pical for the different reclamation periods in
sandy Flanders.
Fig. 7. Vertical aerial photograph (scale 1/10.000)
of the village of Mullem in the sandy loam
region of Flanders (M.0.W.).
Fig. 6. Model of landscape genesis (after A.VER-
HOEVE and F.SNACKEN).
D. Central place village with church.
K. Castel with alley.
1. Oldest reclamation upon good soils.
a) open field; b) meadows.
2. Later reclamation upon less good soils.
a) big isolated farmsteads.
b) meadows (closed landscape).
On the following aerial photographs one can recog-
nize easily the characteristics which are shemati-
cally represented upon the foregoing diagram.
3.1.1. The village of Mullem (fig. 7) situated in
the southern part of East Flanders, in a
slightly rolling sandy loam area. The aerial photo-
graph shows clearly that Mullem is situated in an
open field landscape, no living enclosures are
surrounding the fields plots. The houses are con-
centrated in a nucleated village and the road net-
work is radial. This landscape is typical for an
old reclaimed area, anyhow before the year 1000 AD,
but mostly much older.
3.1.2. Kaprijke (fig.8) is situated in the northem
part of East Flanders and shows a landscape
image which is strongly different from the landsca-
pe characteristics of Mullem. This is a flat and
sandy area, with at certain spots, a deficient
drainage. The reclamation of this area occured
much later, during the 13th and 14th century, and
was carried out in a systematical way resulting in
a checherboard division of the field plots.
After the demographical explosion in Western Fig. 8. Vertical aerial photograph of the village
of Kaprijke (M.W.0.).
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