Résumé 0

The investigation of human-environment relationships is one of the focal points of settlement and landscape archaeology research. Prehistoric and early historical settlement dynamics between favorable and unfavorable areas raise a number of questions regarding the triggering factors for the development and perception or use of landscapes with different agrarian conditions. The present work focuses on a theoretical and methodological examination of this complex of topics within German-speaking prehistoric archaeology as well as an investigation of prehistoric and early historical settlement dynamics using a case study from southwest Germany. Based on an archaeological source criticism, changes in land use on the Baar and in adjacent natural areas of the south-eastern slopes of the Middle Black Forest and the Swabian Alb are recorded using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and discussed with findings from other study regions. The database comprises 1826 sites dating from the Palaeolithic to the end of the High Middle Ages and is supplemented by AMS radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples and OSL dating of sediment samples from colluvia. The synthesis of these archaeological and pedological data makes it possible to record the changing development and conceptualization of the Baar, the Black Forest and the Swabian Alb. By considering theoretical approaches from anthropology and geography, alternative perspectives for the archaeological treatment of favorable and unfavorable areas are shown.