Trip to the Past

Along the highway to Lejre, once we left Copenhagen proper, vast fields of yellow canola flowers could be seen everywhere. This clearly showed the agricultural heritage of Denmark, since a large portion of the nation is still agricultural land. In fact, the nation only started modernizing in the 1970s, and as the population shifted from rural to urban as technology boomed. Now, Denmark is known as an extremely advanced nation, and even has the fastest internet connection speeds in the world! Most of the Jutland peninsula is still agricultural, along with most of the other hundreds of islands, and while the island of Seeland houses Copenhagen, which contains 87% of the nation's population, it is still mostly rural. Natural forces and human intervention has created the Denmark that we know today, and going to Lejre allowed us to see just this.

Lejre houses the Land of Legends (or Sagnlandet Lejre), an open air archeological museum, and used to be the capital of Iron Age Denmark. The site is one of few places in Denmark that contains untouched land, meaning that there are plenty of artifacts and archeological finds to be seen from previous eras. Going through the park, we can see the effects that the geography and climate of Denmark had on its people's mentality and actions, and vice versa. As the climate warmed after the ice age, nomadic people arrived in Denmark, relying on hunting and gathering as their source of survival. As the climate warmed, so did the ecosystems. Trees and other fauna from southern climates appeared in the area, and oysters and other sea organisms became prominent sources of food. As the climate cooled again, the ecosystem became greener and bushier, and at the same time, oysters began to disappear. The Danes, therefore, managed to change their ways once again and began to rely on subsistence farming. Although farming was a much more tedious task, they did what needed to be done. As the land changed throughout the years, Danes were able to consistently adapt to their environments to meet their needs of food and security.

Just as nature affected humans, humans affected the land that they lived on. First, after the agricultural revolution, and during the Iron and Bronze Ages, humans began to own property. Prior to that, since they had relied on hunting and gathering, there was no need for property. The privatization of property, and the planting of large fields of crops, resulted in deforestation. This deforestation, as a result, caused a rapid dwindling of forests and habitats for animals. This, in addition to overhunting, resulted in the extinction of the Aurochs in 1627, as an example. Farming changed the fate of the nation, stressing the already limited resources of a small kingdom. As a result, humans had just as much of an impact on their land as the land had on them. This influence can still be felt greatly today.