Uersfeld

Uersfeld is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kelberg, whose seat is in the like-named municipality. The municipality lies in the Vulkaneifel, a part of the Eifel known for its volcanic history, geographical and geological features, and even ongoing activity today, including gases that sometimes well up from the earth. Like the rest of what is now the Eifel, the place that is now Uersfeld was underwater about 400,000,000 years ago, at the bottom of a Devonian sea. This is witnessed by fossils of sea creatures. Such things were found many years ago by Franz Krämer from Kölnische Höfe (a hamlet now belonging to Kaperich) near Uersfeld's railway station. About 200,000,000 years ago, the Eifel was not only no longer underwater, but also considerably drier than it is today. It was a Triassic desert whose existence is still witnessed today in deposits of bunter and Rotliegend. About 70,000,000 years ago, a subtropical to tropical climate prevailed. The mountains Höchst, Hochkelberg and others in the High Eifel arose about 35,000,000 years ago as a result of Tertiary vulcanism. The maars, however, are quite new, at least geologically speaking, the Mosbrucher Weiher being only 11,000 years old, and the Ulmener Maar only about 10,000. In the New Stone Age (3000 to 2000 BC), the Uersfeld-Kelberg area was home to hunter-gatherers, as witnessed by finds of flint blades and stone hatchets. The first time in which there were settlers in the area came in the first millennium BC, specifically about 700 BC, in Hallstatt times. There have been finds in the Uersfeld-Kelberg area from this time through to late Roman times, showing that there was settlement, albeit rather thin, but continuous, growing settlement nevertheless. A great deal is known about Roman times in the area from archaeological finds. What is known matches ancient authors’ writings and is defined by ceramic finds and also coins.