Goitzsche Time Travel Trail

Display boards are attached to railway planks, on which the tracks of the mine railway used to lie. The filigree drawings - made by an art teacher - give a picture of the most important epochs for Goitzsche. They show what it must have looked like here in the past. The first time jump is huge. It leads into the lush forest of 35 million years ago. Its trees form the material from which the lignite was made.It goes on with time. "100,000 years ago, mammoths and woolly rhinos tramped happily through the area," explains Heidrun Heidecke from BUND. When they lived here, they were dealing with a little ice age. Bone finds in the district museum testify to the existence of the animals in the Goitzsche at this time.60,000 years ago, as can be seen on the next panel, a warm period had begun here. Prehistoric people in loose skins can be seen chasing a huge elephant. Scientific research has shown that scenes like these played out here in the coal region. The famous Gröbern elephant, whose bones were unearthed by miners in the Gröbern opencast mine in 1987, has been reconstructed in the Museum of Prehistory in Halle. Not only his bones can be seen there, the archaeologists also vividly depict the hunting scene.1,000 years ago, as the path makes clear, permanent settlement of the area began. Many finds of potsherds, vessels and other contemporary witnesses date from this period. Then the story presented runs in shorter periods of time - up to the first discovery and mining of coal, the use of the railway and the associated economic boom in the region. Socialism came and the dismantling norm had to be right. The turning point came and everything changed.1990 - one still remembers this lunar landscape, the sandy hills, the rugged earth, the dust and the curses of the housewives. Then you reach the last panel. It shows the lake and with it the change that has taken place in the Bitterfeld region. And when you look at the last picture you have towed your bike up into the cultural landscape, can swing back up again and cycle on a dry path to Petersroda - the journey through time is over.Source: mz.de/local/bitterfeld/35-million-years-on-short-distance-2359729

From the upper part of the path in the direction of the "Vernässungsfläche Ludwigsee / Petersroda" there is a small journey through the Goitzsche that can be traced on picture panels. Starting at the top ("today") the small tablets take you down with you until the Tertiary era. Let's hope that this little highlight will be spared vandals and greases for a long time ...

Journey through time from prehistoric times to today