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Rhine: Rhine Valley
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The Rhine has been a classic example of the alternating roles of great rivers as arteries of political and cultural unification and as political and cultural boundary lines. The river ... has been enshrined in the literature of its lands, especially of Germany, as in the famous epic Nibelungenlied. Since the time when the Rhine valley became incorporated into the Roman Empire, the river has been one of Europe's leading transport routes. Until the 19th century the goods transported were of high value but relatively small in volume, but since the second half of the 19th century the volume of goods conveyed on the river has increased greatly. The fact that cheap water transport on the Rhine helped to keep prices of raw materials down was the main reason the river became a major axis of industrial production: one-fifth of the world's chemical industries are now manufacturing along the Rhine. The river was long a source of political dissension in Europe, but this has given way to international concern for ecological safeguards as pollution levels have risen; some 6,000 toxic substances have been identified in Rhine waters.
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Most of the Rhine's current course was not under the ice during the last Ice Age, although its source must then have been a glacier. A tundra with Ice Age flora and fauna stretched across middle Europe from Asia to the Atlantic Ocean. Such was the case during the Last Glacial Maximum, ca. 22,000-14,000 yr BP, when ice-sheets covered Scandinavia and the Baltic, Scotland and the Alps, but left the space between as open tundra. The loess, or wind-blown dust over that tundra settled in and around the Rhine Valley, contributing to its current agricultural usefulness.
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All Germany is rich in castles but the romantic Rhine Valley - the heartland of the old Holy Roman Empire - has a particularly high density of important important medieval military buildings. Some are ruins, but many, like Marksburg Castle, have survived the ravages of war, fire and neglect . Some are fascinating windows into the age of chivalry and the development of this fascinating form of military construction.
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Politically the Rhine has always played a great part. The whole valley seems to have been originally occupied by Celtic tribes, who have left traces of their presence on the contents of tombs and in the forms of names (Moguntiacum or Mainz, Borbetomagus or Worms); but at the beginning of the historical period we find the Celts everywhere in retreat before the advancing Teutons. Probably the Teutonic pressure began as early as the 4th century before Christ, and the history of the next few hundred years may be summed up as the gradual substitution of a Germanic for a Celtic population along the banks of the Rhine. Its second historical period begins with the advent of the Romans, who stemmed the advancing Teutonic tide. Augustus and his successors took good care to fortify the Rhine carefully, and a large proportion of the Roman legions were constantly in garrison here. For two hundred years the Rhine formed the boundary between the Roman empire and the Teutonic hordes; and during that period the left or Roman bank made prodigious strides in civilization and culture.
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The Rhine carves deeply through the Rhenish Uplands, creating a dramatic river valley. Most scenic is the section between Bingen and Koblenz where the Rhine meanders through the Rhenish Slate Mountains, passing forested hillsides, steep terraced vineyards and many medieval castles.
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The Rhine connects the highest Alps with the mud banks of Holland, and touches in its course the most varied geological periods; but the river valley itself is, geologically speaking, of comparatively recent formation. Rising amid the ancient gneiss rocks of the St Gotthard, the Rhine finds its way down to the Lake of Constance between layers of Triassic and Jurassic formation; and between that lake and Basel it penetrates the chalk barrier of the Jura. The upper Rhenish valley is evidently the bed of an ancient lake, the shores of which were formed by the gneiss and granite of the Black Forest on the one side and the granite and sandstone of the Vosges on the other. Within the valley all the alluvial deposits are recent. Between Bingen and Bonn the Rhine forces its way through a hilly and rocky district belonging to the Devonian formation. The contorted strata of slate and greywacke rock must have been formed at a period vastly anterior to that in which the lake of the upper valley managed to force an outlet through the enclosing barriers.
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Rhine Valley