Historical parcellation and ridge-and-furrow relics of open strip-fields in the north-west European lowlands

We tested to what extent ridge-and-furrow relics can be identified with airborne LiDAR imagery and analysed whether the ridge-and-furrow can provide an archive of historical parcellation dynamics in open strip-fields. Our case study area is the central-eastern Netherlands (Twente; Veluwe) and adjacent lowland Germany (Westphalia). We sampled eight mark territories containing twenty-one neighbourhoods with unurbanised open strip-fields. The sample contained coversand, ground moraine and ice-pushed ridge landscapes. The study was based on LiDAR-derived elevation models (DEM), historical cadastres and topographic maps, soil and geomorphological maps as well as an archaeological excavation. Ridge-and-furrow relics of 1–2 decimetres height, invisible to the naked eye, were detected in every strip-field. In large strip-fields, raised headland relics divided ridged beds into two shorter strip parcels. In afforested parts of strip-fields, ridge-and-furrow was generally better preserved. Ridged beds were broadly congruent with cadastral strip parcels from the early nineteenth century. However, cadastral strip parcels were often shorter than ridge-and-furrow beds but frequently several beds wide. The identified micro-topographic patterns turned out to be an archive of historical reparcellation dynamics.