Landscape, Youth and History

Some thoughts about the Outdoor and Indoor Project “Primeval History Gallery” of Students of the University Augsburg

F. Hartmut Paffrath

A few snail-houses and several bones were the beginning of an unexpected project. One of the students of our seminar “Environmental Education” had discovered them as he was collecting some interesting things of nature.

The objects were quite mysterious, especially the bones. We couldn’t really identify them. They were very hard and looked strange. So we decided to ask an expert of the Nature Museum of Augsburg. His answer was astonishing: the bones were the remains of a special kind of squirrel that lived some million years ago, the snails as well.

What an amazing surprise. Of course we were interested how the squirrel looked like back then. How did it live? What was its nourish? How did the landscape look like at this time?

The journey in the past began. We looked out for other fossils in the area of Augsburg. We digged at several places, in quarries, fields, riversides and found really witnesses of millions of years ago: several kinds of leaves and animals.

Picture: Outdoor work in a quarry

We found ammonites especially. How could that be? Ammonites are living in the sea… And Augsburg is far away from the next ocean. We wanted to solve this question and finally found out that the area of Augsburg was covered with water for a long period. It was a part of the Mediterranean Sea (Tethys) – about 20 Million years ago.

Picture – Map of Augsburg in the Paratethys

The history of our special place we live in is an adventurous change of climates and very different appearances. Augsburg looked like the Artic Circle or an African primeval forest. Many different plants and animals were living here: dinosaurs, mammoths, elephants, crocodiles, sharks, mussels…and the squirrel.

This was the first part of the project. The second part was the idea to present our research to other students and visitors of the University.  The gallery “Primeval History of Augsburg” was born. We decided to give an impression of this various history by an exposition in one of our (unfortunately not very attractive) staircases.

Picture: Staircase of the University

But how should we present our material in the four floors of the staircase? We decided to make four focal points.

Floor 1: Mussels

Picture - Composition of different mussels

Floor 2: Ammonites

Picture - The golden Ammonite

There are different forms of Ammonites, not only the well-known round form. Therefore we choose a special animal for our composition.

Picture – Different forms of Ammonites

Floor 3: Impact of a meteorite

About 15 million years ago there was a great accident when a meteorite collided with the earth quite near to Augsburg in Nördlingen. The Detonation of this 1000 yard meteorite was as powerful as 250 000 atomic bombs of the Hiroshima type. All live was destroyed. But 100 years later it returned. We had found several stones which are now witnesses of this accident. The so called Suevit is singular in the world and looks like slag.

Picture - The crash

Floor 4: Painting – Augsburg in a subtropical epoch

Picture - The Townhall of Augsburg in the midst of the sea.

Besides these main exhibits we decorated the staircases also with some other smaller exposes:  fossils, general maps, tabular summaries and drawings.

Picture – Augsburg and its Primeval History (Collatypie of Hermann Moser)

The pictures can give an impression of the project and open the discussion for other points of view and possibilities. For example: How will landscape look like in Augsburg, in Camarthen or other places tomorrow? What about the history of man-kind and its influence on landscape?

Let’s have a look on the last 2000 years of civilisation in and around Augsburg since the Romans came to Germania and founded Augsburg. Since then there was a great change of the natural environment. It was cultivated more and more: Industrial areas emerged and even the farming was industrialized: plants, trees, animals – mass production and mass consumption.

Wood plantation and chicken farming can illustrate the tendency.
There is no chance to live the own life in comfort. Neither the tree in the compact plantation or the chicken in the box. And what’s about mankind? How far are we prisoners of this enormous process, already? The process of urbanisation is going on and on. Towns with Millions of people: Kalkutta, Mexiko City, Tokio…

Concerning those tendencies we found out an astonishing fact during our work with the “Primeval History Gallery”. When we tried to identify the leaves for instance we discovered many similar forms but each was a little bit different from the other. At school we had to learn the typical forms of an oak leave, an elm leave or a maple leave – but each single leave is different to the standard type. A miracle of nature and the principle of life.

We began to look more and more respectful to the fossils and the great number of various plants and animals. Their survival is especially endangered in our days.

Our future depends as well on the change of nature as of the increasing influence of mankind. That means: of you and me, of Shirley or John, Andy or Gisela in the special place where they live.

Outdoor education is a possibility and also a task for young people towards a world in which the respect of the living, the regard to the community of plants, animals and mankind will have a chance. A vote for a landscape in which the descendants of the squirrel we found can live, too…