1. Genk in earliest times

In Genk a number of artefacts were discovered that point to the fact that this region was visited by nomadic hunters and fishermen during the middle of the Stone Age.
The oldest traces of agriculture in these regions, round about zo’n 7.500 years ago, go back to what is called the Linear Pottery culture. The Roman occupier never paid much attention to the barren sandy soils of the Kempen and its inaccessible forests. That is why Genk has never really been influenced by Gallo-Romanisation over time.

Until the end of the 19th century people in Genk lived in huts and on small farms that later evolved into the typical longitudinal farms, first made of loam, later of brick.

The Genk farmers tried to survive on their barren soil and provided for themselves by creating a typical cultured landscape, the heath. Heather did not grow here originally. The first farmers cleared the forests to enable the cattle to graze. Through the systemic burning of the original forests, heather took over these regions. Heather renewed itself continually, mainly because of the constant grazing by herds of cattle, and it kept coming up. At about 1800 the heather-culture reached its climax.