The six contributions to volume 42 of the series Settlement and Coastal Research in the Southern North Sea Region all highlight the special significance of coastal areas as buried archives. The exceptionally good preservation conditions which are often found in this zone – especially in the soils of the marshes and bogs – frequently give new insights into how the specific living conditions of past societies in this area developed. Recent research on the megalithic graves in the Ahlen-Falkenberg bog, now overgrown by peat, may serve as an example, as summarised in this volume. At the same time, coastal areas with their numerous waterways have, more than any other landscape, been shaped by exchange relations throughout all phases of human history. This is illustrated by mapping inter-regionally objects in demand, such as the Roman period millstones made from basalt lava, treated in another contribution here. The intertidal zone between land and sea was also of enormous spiritual importance in prehistory. This is shown by new investigations of a Bronze Age and Iron Age sacred landscape at the northern tip of the Elbe-Weser triangle, an area that has only recently been identified thanks to the analysis of LiDAR data and is currently being investigated more closely.
