The Land Hadeln is a 22 km to 25 km broad marsh-area close to the estuary of the River Elbe near Cuxhaven on the North Sea. Embedded between the Hohe Lieth in the west, the Wingst and the Westerberg in the east, the Handeln Marsh stretches about 25 km in a southerly direction as far as the Bederkesa Moor Geest. Hadeln Bay belongs to the sea-marsh area of the Elbe-Weser region, which formed due to marine conditions.

...The main focus of settlement is on the highland which is on average about 15 m above sea level. The Hadeln low lying land, which roughly begins in Neuenkirchen, goes down to less than 0.5 m under sea level and, due to the lack of drainage, is very marshy, especially on the Geest edges. This area is surrounded by a ring of lakes, such as the Flögeln- and Bederkesa Lakes as well as the Balk Lake.

...The coast line of the North Sea has changed frequently in the course of the Earth’s history. Towards the end of the Ice Age, roughly 10.000 years ago, another low-land bay existed on the southern Elbe estuary. Due to the rising sea level, tidal change led to the flooding of Hadeln Bay at high tide. At low tides the materials transported by the water were deposited, so that the marsh grew slowly higher over the course of millennia.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/53da2d7b59f477901e6ad723b95999c9.png

The first settlement traces go back to the Palaeolithic Age and are restricted to single finds of flint artefacts, like the flint found in Wanna and from the Wingst. They are assigned to the Upper Acheuléan period, chronologically to the end of the penultimate Ice Age, and are found in connection with Neanderthal man.

Unlike the Palaeolithic, a number of Mesolithic finds are known in the Elbe-Weser area. They are partially from the neighbouring regions of the Land Hadeln, for instance from Neuenwalde and Hemmoor-Westersode close to the Wingst.

With the beginning of the Neolithic period (roughly 3000 BC) the human impact on landscape in the Elbe-Weser area increases. One of the discernible changes in the natural landscape is the introduction by the humans of farming and livestock breeding. This phase of land settlement in North Germany is most obvious in the Elbe-Weser area of Flögeln, north-west of Bederkesa on the Geest. Pollen diagrams from kettle-hole bogs indicate the existence of grasses and heather in a clearing in the forest suggesting that grazing went on. Spelt and hull-less barley as well as some emmer were grown as cultivated plants. At the site of Flögeln there are the outlines of houses from the Neolithic Funnel Beaker culture (Trichterbecher Kultur; TRB), which provide information about the settlements of that time. Today the Neolithic burial places stand out in the landscape, and numerous examples were erected in the Land Hadeln. including those of Wanna and the Ahlenmoor. The burial places there were partially covered by the moor and are therefore well preserved. The cause of the growth of peatland at this time was the rise of the ground water level, which made the formation of the raised bogs possible.

For the Bronze Age there are many archaeological sites in the Elbe-Weser region. In particular tumuli and urn cemeteries, as well as some settlement traces, are worthy of mention. Nevertheless, there has been a lack of major settlement excavations. The man-made landscape hardly changed in the pre-Roman Iron Age either. However, there is a considerable increase of settlement activity, which intensifies in the northern Elbe-Weser area in the following Roman Imperial/Migration Period. This is also apparent in the beginning of the terp (settlement mounds)-building in the marsh around Christ's Birth, as well as in the continued settlement in the Geest-areas, for instance, in Flögeln-Eekhöltjen. Up to that time the settlement of the marsh was subject to variations in the sea level. This also holds true for the first small Iron Age settlements on the sandy ridges, but only with the beginning of terp-building was permanent settlement possible in the flood-endangered areas.

There are large old village-terpen in the west of the highland of Hadeln between Lüdingworth and Dörringworth, as well as on the Medem between Neuenkirchen and Otterndorf, and to the east of Otterndorf in Westerwörden. The terpen were settled until the 5th century and today they still rise above the surrounding areas by a few metres. They reflect the coastline of the North Sea or the shoreline in the tidal-area of the particular river-system during its settlement-phase.

An early medieval re-settlement, like the one which is documented for the neighbouring coastal land of Wursten, by a new terp-building phase in the 7th/8th century, can probably also be assumed for the Land Hadeln. Similarly, the question is still open, as to when the low lying land was cultivated for the first time. An indication of this is in the setting up of linear settlements, starting in the 12th/13th century on the north and east edge of the Ahlenmoor, from which the moor was cultivated bit by bit by peat-cutting.

With the medieval dyke-building the terpen lost their function as a protection from storm floods. It is assumed that the first medieval winter-dyke in Hadeln was set up parallel to the coast in the 12th century (“Hadler Seebanddeich”). It was presumably planned by Dutch colonists. A comparable development has been passed down to us for the Hamme-Wümme depression near Bremen in a document from 1113. Today there are still sections of old dykes, in separated sections,preserved near Otterndorf. However, they did not belong to the continuous winter-dyke, but where water divides between areas of different drainage direction.

It was only after 1469 that dykes were built at the mouth of the Medem. The church of Otterndorf, founded in the 12th century, was up to the middle of the 15th century in the area beyond the outer dyke. All in all there were 12 parishes in the Land Hadeln. The town of Otterndorf had a prominent position in the Elbe-Weser area for several centuries. In the core of the old town the original arrangement of the terp of Otterndorf is still recognizable.

The Reformation asserted itself in the Elbe-Weser area in the middle of the 16th century and found quicker acceptance in the Land Hadeln, which was under the supremacy of the Dukedom of Saxony-Lauenburg, than in the lands under archiepiscopal rule. After the losses of the Thirty Years' War the need rose for ecclesiastical furnishings, which in the 17th and 18th century often came from farmers’ donations. The churches in Hadeln in particular reflect the economic prosperity of the large farmers, and this is also evident in the development of splendid buildings combining living and working quarters in the Hadeln highland. The churches of the Land are also called "farmers’ domes" (Bauerndome).

In the second half of the 17th century, further settlements were built on the peatland edges, and the intensified deforestation of the Geest led to an increase in peat-cutting so that heating-fuel could be obtained. In this cultivation-phase Westerende, Mittelteil, Steinau-Westerseite and Medemstade came into being. The development of new land improvement techniques also ameliorated the conditions for agriculture in the low lying land. Suitable meadowland could now be transformed into farmland. While the settlements in the low lying land, such as Bülkau, Oppeln and Steinau, mainly represented the type of closed marshland village with relatively closely positioned houses, the linear settlements of the northern highland, such as Altenbruch and Lüdingworth, take the form of a loose structure of detached farms.

From the early Modern Times the Land Hadeln was regarded as a granary, which supplied grain to Hamburg in particular. An important upswing in agriculture was closely connected with cultivation of rape-seed from the middle of the 18th century. Today there are remnants of the former field-use left in the low lying land.