Origins of a Landscape

In the permanent exhibition Origins of a Landscape, you will discover the origins of the push moraine landscape and the river area. How enormous masses of glacial ice during the last Ice Age pushed the ground up to form high hills called push moraines. Due to climate change, the Ice Age came to an end. The glaciers retreated, the sea level rose, and the landscape was further shaped by the large rivers.

Mammoth and white wolf

In the Origins of a landscape, you will find animals that roamed here thousands of years ago and erratic boulders that were deposited here by glaciers during the Ice Age. Here, you come face to face with a mammoth skull found in Bergharen. These woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) lived in this region during the last Ice Age. About 10,000 years ago, the landscape changed drastically due to climate change, leaving less and less space and food for these giants.

Here, too, you stand in this room face to face with a white wolf (Canis lupus albus). This wolf is a bit larger than its relative, the gray wolf (Canis lupus lupus), which you can now encounter again in the Netherlands. Just take a look in our permanent exhibition The Treasury of the River.

The grand rivers

The moraines between Arnhem and Nijmegen once formed a single entity, along which the predecessors of the Rhine and the Waal flowed. After a few centuries, these rivers broke through the ridges. A gap formed between what is now Arnhem and Nijmegen, causing the Waal and the Rhine to flow westward. This river plain, with the Veluwe to the north and Nijmegen to the south, is called De Gelderse Poort.

At the beginning of the Holocene, the climate became warmer and milder. Braided rivers transformed into slowly meandering rivers such as the Rhine and Meuse. These wide, dynamic rivers could also flood large parts of central Netherlands and change their course. Around 250 BC, a southern branch of the Rhine became increasingly active: the Waal. Due to natural changes, this branch developed a shorter route to the sea and carried more and more water. From the Middle Ages onward, the Waal became the main artery of the Dutch river delta. Today, two-thirds of all Rhine water flows to the sea via the Waal.

Strategic location on the Waal

The observant visitor will notice that in this exhibition hall there are remnants of yet another tower to be seen. These are the foundations of a 13th-century defensive tower: the Werner van Heze Tower. This tower is the forerunner of the bastion. It is not surprising that the Valkhof Hill and Museum De Bastei are such hotspots of archaeology and cultural history. This high spot (a drift-sand fan of the moraine) by the river has been a popular and strategic settlement location since Roman times. From the hill, one had a good view over the landscape, and the settlement was protected by that natural boundary: the Waal.

This shows how the river connects the city and nature in this area. Do you want to learn more about the nature in the river region? Then take a look in our Treasury of the River.

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