Abstract: Anthropogenic heathlands are open landscapes, dominated by Calluna (heather) and dwarf shrubs, that once connected extensive areas of northern Europe. Heathlands occur naturally on acidic, nutrient-poor soils in regions of cool-temperate oceanic climate but can also emerge through sustained human management. These landscapes played a key, still somewhat underestimated role, in the textile production in southern Scandinavia, providing a year-round, in situ pasture for sheep. Especially when managed with frequent burning, heathland produce young, digestible, and nutritious heather, which is preferred for grazing livestock. The nutritional value of heather drastically falls already after five years, becoming less attractive to most grazers. This short window of optimal nutritional value incentivizes pastoralists to burn more and more frequently to maintain heather in its young stages. Over time, managed fires, grazing and other rejuvenation and extraction practices would have manipulated heather in particular ways and directions, ultimately fostering a specific social life within the heathlands. Both humans and the landscape changed due to their close interaction. – As specific grazing qualities were promoted and others disappeared, these highly human modified landscapes tended to lead heathlands and humans into deep-time trajectories, limiting alternative social and ecological pathways.

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