Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps

The pile dwellings are mostly located near the banks of lakes, rivers or bogs. Their location in anaerobic environments (without oxygen) has allowed an excellent preservation of organic materials that have provided a wealth of information about life in the first European farming communities. Agricultural practices, livestock and technological innovations have been reconstructed with a high degree of accuracy, providing an insight into daily life between 5000 and 500 BC. This time span of more than 4,000 years, coincides with one of the most important stages in human history.

The oldest description of a dwelling arrangement similar to a stilt house can be found in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus; In one of his travel reports he described a group of houses standing on piles in a Thrace lake. In Europe, the first remains of piles where uncovered on the banks of the Lake Zurich in the early decades of the nineteenth century. A more systematic research was carried out only a few years later, in Switzerland and in Italy. In Lombardy one of the most important researchers is abbot Antonio Stoppani, who was the first to identify these settlements in Varese. In Piedmont Bartolomeo Gastaldi, a distinguished professor of Geology discovered the Mercurago pile dwelling at Lake Maggiore. Pile dwellings are huts standing on piles, grouped up together to form villages. These structures, featuring a horizontal wooden platform supporting them, could be built either directly on a lake, swamp or river or on the bank of any such water body. Depending on the type of soil, the climate and the specific needs of the inhabitants pile dwellings may either sit on reclaimed land (above ground) or be aerial (suspended above the water). Unlike the above ground pile dwellings, which feature a base of superimposed horizontal poles, the above water ones stand on vertical pointed supporting piles, the lower end of which is pointed to be more easily inserted in the ground. The suspended structures can be joined together and connected to the main land by means of walkways; alternatively there could be a single horizontal plankboard platform that covers the whole group of houses. Building materials included, in addition to wood poles and tree trunks also straw and reeds. Living in villages like these had several advantages: the dwellings were close to the water bodies (lakes and rivers), that is close to water and food but at the same time, being raised above water, the houses did not suffer from the rising and lowering of the waters and were harder to reach by enemies and wild animals.

The excavation of the pile-dwelling sites, in addition to detailed analysis of the settlements also allowed the recovery of a large number of artefacts, often in excellent conditions. The most important findings for the material culture , such as fragments of pottery and other tools, have allowed researchers to take ‘snapshots’ the daily lives of people who lived in Europe in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Bone combs, ambers, needles and weaving tools, hoes, ploughs, food remains, votive statuettes, vegetable fibre containers, crucibles, axes, bits and blades have allowed researchers to date and document the activities of the pile-dwellings inhabitants. Data collected this way allowed us to assume that the European prehistoric man hunted game, farmed the land and woven garments and other artefacts. Some products with distinctive features, such as tiaras or daggers, have also helped understanding how the people of the various regions of continental Europe influenced each other and as well as reconstructing the routes of trade and of cultural contamination between the different areas.

In the temperate climate areas of Italy, wetlands are the environments that contain the largest number of living species. The reason for that is the high volume of plant biomass, often associated with a wide diversity of plant and animal species in relatively smaller spaces. These areas are especially vulnerable to manmade alterations, particularly in the last 150 years. Today wetlands are perceived as an exceptional environmental heritage which shall be protected and valorised, raising awareness about it in the general public as well. The interest and importance of wetlands is further increased by the presence of prehistoric settlements that make these areas life-sized historical, archaeological and paleo-environmental archives of utmost importance. The wetlands are often threatened by natural erosion and by reclamation and dredging works, by all works related to city planning and management and by the landfills that currently are causing a drastic decrease in size of the wetlands and endangering the prehistoric sites preserved in them.

The special preservation conditions of the organic materials guaranteed by peat deposits or water soaked deposits have made it possible for the pile dwelling remains to reach us in good conditions, thus providing us with information and data which is far more accurate and thorough than the data on dry land archaeological sites (which are higher in number and better distributed in the territory).

The pile-dwelling villages are an endless source of information on the material culture of prehistory. In this particular type of archaeological sites, conservation of timber helps us to understand the history, evolution and organization of the ancient villages. In addition to that, the preservation of tools and wooden boxes, wicker baskets, fabrics or cordage and also food residues offers us an astoundingly in-depth look into the daily life of the denizens of these villages. The uniqueness of these findings requires special techniques of excavation and multidisciplinary research groups made up of experts from many scientific disciplines.

The peculiar humidity conditions have also allowed the preservation of other remains, perhaps less visually impressive but by no means less important: the seeds of cereals, fruits and weeds. The plant remains preserved in the pile dwellings, mixed together with the junk of the huts themselves provide us with a detailed, unique portrait of this environment’s conditions in prehistory and of the human activities related to its exploitation.

The pile-dwelling site of Fiavé was subject to thorough, systematic excavations between 1969 and 1975 (works were directed by Renato Perini). During the eighties and nineties the site underwent a thorough archaeological and paleo-environmental investigation directed by Franco Marzatico. Several pre and protohistoric permanent settlements were identified in Fiavé: the oldest features both houses on lands and reclaimed land and the more recent ones consist of above-water pile dwellings. The Lake Carera site features a rich museum, a true treasure trove of artefacts unearthed by the excavations. In addition to the ceramic materials there is also evidence of metalworking (crucibles and stone matrices) and some amber beads of Baltic origin. The finds are all on display at the Fiavé Pile Dwellings Museum.

This settlement, located at the entrance of the Ponale stream, was accidentally discovered in 1929. While the earliest excavations were not particularly extensive, those carried out between 1936 and 1937 revealed more than 10,000 poles and a large-sized planked floor (probably a raised platform). Most of the archaeological findings were recovered between 1957 and 1967 and they allowed researchers to date the site between the Early and Middle Bronze Age. Today in Ledro, in addition to the Lake Ledro Pile Dwelling Museum it is also possible to visit a life-size replica of a pile dwellings village. The structure, in addition to stimulating the critical thinking and imagination of the visitors, allows a full-immersion experience, a journey bringing visitors back to the dawn of European civilization.

The first findings in Lavagnone date back to 1880. However, true and accurate investigations on the site began only be after the war (1958-1962); the most comprehensive and thorough are those directed by Renato Perini (1974-1979). The excavations intensified after 1987 and laid grounds to speculate that the village had not always and consistently occupied the same areas: while in the Bronze Age the pile dwellings stood in the most central part of the basin, later the whole village was moved on the bank. Most of the materials recovered from the excavations are exhibited in the Museo Civico Archeologico “G. Rambotti” museum in Desenzano del Garda; the best known and remarkable finding is the famous Lavagnone plough (about 2000 BC).

This site, investigated mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth century, is the first Italian pile dwellings site to ever undergo a scientific study (in 1860). The metal, glass and especially wooden findings are particularly important and remarkable; the most remarkable are certainly four wooden wheels (two of them, still in Gastaldi’s original cast are kept in Turin’s archaeology museum), which testify the technological prowess achieved in the construction of wagons. The materials are on display in the archaeological museums of Arona and Turin and at the Museo Fiorentino.

The first research in Piadena dates back to 1800 and uncovered numerous remains of poles driven into the ground. New researches were then carried out between 1982 and 1986. The latest researches made it possible to ascertain that the village was developed in the middle of the water basin as well as to identify the areas for the homes and the open areas. Thanks to the many findings, preserved both in Piadena and in Rome the village is thought to have been inhabited from the end of the Early Bronze Age and the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. The findings of the Polpenazze Lucone pile dwellings are on display at the Platina archaeological museum (Piadena, Cremona).

The village of Lucone, featuring in documents since 1800, seems to have had a rather long life: from the beginnings of the Early Bronze Age to the late Middle Bronze Age. This site is currently subject to thorough research, both via excavations and surface collections and so far it yielded archaeological finds but also many animal and vegetal remains, providing information on food and economy of the settlement. The findings from the Polpenazze Lucone pile dwellings village are on display at the Valle Sabbia archaeological museum in Gavardo.

The Palù wetland, near the Livenza river sources, extends in a natural basin of great beauty encircled by the limestone hills of Monte Consiglio on one side and the low hills that separate it from the surrounding flood plain on the other. The archaeological relevance of this site was already known in the nineteenth century but was not recognized until since 1965, when a drainage channel was dug in the centre of the basin, thus allowing collection of many prehistoric artefacts. In 1981 more systematic and thorough researches started and continued until the end of the 1990s, uncovering almost a thousand structural elements of the wooden huts. The excavations brought to light the remains of a Late Neolithic pile-dwelling village, dated between 4500 and 3600 BC. New archaeological researches, undertaken since 2013 have confirmed the importance of the site for the understanding of the relationship between man and the environment during the Neolithic age. The findings are on display at the Friuli Occidentale archaeological museum in Pordenone.

The first findings in the Frassino lake date back to the early 1980s.The underwater excavations have brought to light material dated between the end of the Early and the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age: ceramic sets, often decorated or engraved, shells, metal, bones, stone and wood tools. The preservation of vertical and horizontal structural wooden elements in water, together with a remarkable concentration of finds, further reinforces the uniqueness of the discovery of this site and their fundamental importance for the understanding of construction techniques of the period.

Just a few meters away from the shore of Biandronno, on the Lake Varese lies the oldest prehistoric pile-dwelling site of the Alps. It was discovered in 1863, but excavations began in 1878. The researches of the 1950s and 1970-80s focussed in particular on the middle of the island. Pilings, structural and cultural elements date back to the last centuries of the sixth millennium BC: prehistoric men lived in the site for over 4000 years from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (about 5300-900 BC). Since 2006 new excavations carried out on the surfaced lands, in addition to underwater searches (never tried before 2012) combined with geological surveys of Lake Varese and the site, made it possible to verify the artificial origin of Isolino Virginia: a tell in a moist environment. Most of the material that came to light during the excavations is stored in the archaeological museum of Villa Mirabello in Varese.

Experimental archaeology tests the ancient manufacturing and building techniques in an attempt to verify them. This discipline can be regarded as complementary to classical archaeological research as it aims to find the consistency of assumptions made. In pre and proto-historical archaeology this research and testing technique is well developed; it is no wonder then, that several pile-dwelling sites are characterized by the presence of (full-scale) reproductions of village sections. In Ledro, for example, there are three huts and a wooden support platform. These areas, particularly useful for educational purposes, are the ideal setting for theme workshops: weaving, clay modelling and stone engravings are just some of the activities of prehistoric lie the village has shed light upon.

Wood is the main material used in the construction of pile-dwelling villages. A plant tissue found in the trunks of trees, wood is part of the organic materials. Organic materials, in archaeology, are the most difficult to find: their vegetable or animal nature makes conservation difficult. Along with wood, leather, plant fibres and seeds, organic materials remain more or less unaltered only in particular circumstances, where the presence of oxygen (and thus of life) is very limited or absent. Suitable places for this type of conservation are the water bodies and wetlands: for this reason the pile-dwelling sites have yielded huge quantities of remains and even pieces of housing facilities.

Ferdinand Keller (1800-1881)

In the winter of 1854 the works for the construction of a port started in Meilen, on Lake Zurich, following the lowering of the water level unearthed relics and wooden stakes scattered on the ground. The archaeologist Ferdinand Keller interpreted the expanses of poles as remnants of prehistoric villages, thus starting the archaeological research in the wetlands and one of the most fascinating adventures in European archaeology.

Andrew Ellicott Douglass (Windsor County, 1867 – Tucson, 1962)

A professor of the University of Arizona, Douglass was the main theoretician of the dendrochronology, a method of dating the tree (and thus wood) based on the growth pattern of rings on the trunk. This system, developed from 1906 onwards, was vital for dating the pile-dwelling sites. Dendrochronology is based on three principles: the trees, in areas where there is a clear distinction between seasons, produce a new growth ring each year, easily identified in the cross section of the trunk; the trees living in the same geographical area and which belong to the same species of wood are characterized by similar growth rings; similar ring sequences can be compared one with each other. The comparison of similar sequences, some of which can be provided with an absolute date, makes it possible to identify the year of felling of a tree and consequently of the handicrafts made from it.

Bartolomeo Gastaldi (Turin, 1818 – Turin, 1879)

A professor of geology and mineralogy, Bartolomeo Gastaldi was a man with an eclectic spirit and many interests. As a boy, against the wishes of his father, he devoted himself to Palaeontology and nature trips instead of studying Law. Gastaldi discovered one of the first pile dwellings identified in Europe: The Mercurago pile-dwelling, in the province of Novara. This stilt house was brought to light by chance, and the first traces of its existence were found in the mid-nineteenth century. Thanks to Gastaldi first (1860-1862) and then to the Piedmont Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage the site was gradually and thoroughly inspected and researched since 1955. Gastaldi had a pioneering scientific approach to this work.

Antonio Stoppani (1824-1891)

Antonio Stoppani was the director of Milan’s Museo Civico and the President of the Italian Society of Natural Sciences. Stoppani also fought in the Five Days of Milan riot. A Professor of Geology at the University of Pavia after 1861 he then in 1867 moved to the newly founded Polytechnic of Milan to teach Geology. He devoted himself to the exploration of Varese lakes with E. Desor and G. Mortillet: in 1863 he discovered pilings along the southeast shore of Isolino Virginia (at that time called Isola Camilla) and the pile-dwellings of the historic centre of Bodio.

Renato Perini (1924-2007)

Renato Perini directed, from 1969 to 1987, the archaeological researches in Fiavé, coordinating an interdisciplinary research group and publishing 4 volumes dedicated to the most important excavation campaigns (1969-1976). A primary school teacher, later on he moved to the Office of Archaeological Heritage of Trento. Perini was a top on-field archaeologist who even received an honorary degree from the University of Innsbruck in 1990. After about a century of scientific debate about the nature of the Alpine lake dwellings, the ruins of Fiavé have allowed to clearly recognize the presence of multiple types of villages: those where the dwellings were on reclaimed lakeside lands, those where the dwellings were on water and those that featured both: some dwellings on the ground and some on water.

►  “[…] Col procedere del tempo, le acque del formato “Ponale” hanno scavato sempre più profondo nella morena fino a raggiungere il livello attuale, e forse si sarebbe abbassato maggiormente, se gli abitanti la valle in quell’epoca, non avessero intrapreso dei lavori di imbrigliamento, proprio là dove ha origine il fiume dove le acque del lago imprendono la discesa; impiantando una fittissima palizzata con migliaia di tronchi di pino, ponendone poi di trasversale in tutti i sensi fino a raggiungere la superficie delle acque, anzi circa un metro più alto. Negli interstizi di questa palizzata costruita migliaia di anni dopo la scomparsa dei ghiacciai, e dopo l’assestamento del terreno, gli abitanti di quell’epoca, riempirono di materiali vari, rifiuti, e utensili rotti o buoni di cucina o d’altro, che ingombravano le case e le adiacenze, così si formò col tempo una solida arginatura che teneva imbrigliata le acque nei periodi di piena. Del resto è facile convenirne, quando si pensi che questi materiali non potevano e dovevano essere gettati nell’alveo del fiume per non ingombrarlo ed evitare danni lungo tutto il percorso dello stesso. Questo spiega il perché a causa dello svasamento delle acque del lago, per il bisogno della centrale Elettrica “Ponale”, siano rimaste allo scoperto le palizzate costruite millenni di anni prima e di conseguenza vennero alla luce i cocci e i rifiuti che i nostri progenitori, usarono per costruire le dette palizzate. Notisi che il vandalismo moderno diretto dai moderni scienziati, hanno devastato buona parte di quell’opera fatta con tanto criterio e con tanta fatica dai nostri nonni e questo per qual motivo? Ritenendo di aver trovata la fenice, scoprendo le abitazioni sulle acque dei nostri anfibi genitori, ed hanno preso alla lettera che i cocci di creta, senza vernice, appartenessero a quelli anfibi abitatori che vivevano a un metro sopra il livello dell’acqua. Non si nega che quei cocci abbiano appartenuto agli abitanti che vivevano millenni di anni fa, forse anche all’epoca della pietra; però e da escludersi con certezza che siano caduti in acqua, dalle abitazioni che vuolsi esistessero sopra la palizzata o la palafitta che dir si voglia. Mano mano che il mondo, la civiltà e l’industria progrediva, venivano adottate suppellettili migliori e più moderne e scartatele vecchie; come del resto anche ai giorni nostri succede.”

Francesco Zecchini (1943), Le palafitte nel cassetto dei ricordi 1929-2009: 80 anni di archeologia a Ledro, a c. di A. Fedrigotti, Museo Tridentino di scienze naturali, Trento, 2010

 

The rock drawings in Valcamonica (Brescia) are petroglyphs dating, back to prehistoric times, just like the pile dwellings. The First Italian site to be added to the list of World Heritage (1979), the Rock drawings in Valcamonica is an extremely important site due to its close connection with the history of man. Like the pile dwellings, the drawings let us know more about the uses and customs of our ancestors. They depict animals, humans, wagons and ploughs thus telling the story of the spreading of agriculture and also weapons (daggers, axes, halberds): these finds are our ‘stone windows’ on the past.

The archaeological area of ​​Barumini is one of the largest nuragic villages of Sardinia. Unearthed in the 1950s by the archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu, it had been built in several stages since the fifteenth century BC. The site, a UNESCO heritage site since 1997, includes an impressive nuraghe and a surrounding village of round huts. Like the pile-dwelling sites, Barumini gives us a glimpse of life in the centuries before Christ, and tells us more about living habits of the time of construction.

Le palafitte nel cassetto dei ricordi 1929-2009: 80 anni di archeologia a Ledro, a c. di A. Fedrigotti, Museo Tridentino di scienze naturali, Trento, 2010.

AA.VV., Le terramare: la più antica civiltà padana, Electa, Milano, 1997.

AA.VV., Museo delle palafitte del lago di Ledro, ViaDellaTerra, Rovereto, 2009.

M. Baioni, G. Bocchio (a cura di), Lucone di Polpenazze. Un’eccezionale esperienza tra archeologia, natura e arte, 2013.

D.G. Banchieri, A. Bini, M. Mainberger, Isolino Virginia, un tell in ambiente umido in un lago prealpino del Sud delle Alpi: problemi di prevenzione ed erosione, Sibrium XXIX, 2015, pp. 41-59.

F. Gonzato et alii, Palafitte. Un viaggio nel passato per alimentare il futuro, Catalogo della mostra, Verona, 2015.

F. Marzatico, Un mondo sull’acqua: le palafitte di Fiavè, Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Fiavè, 1988.

F. Marzatico, R. Perini, Gli uomini delle acque: le palafitte di Fiavè, Giunti, Firenze, 1988.

R. Micheli (a cura di), Vivere sull’acqua. Il mondo delle palafitte neolitiche di Palù di Livenza, EcoMuseo Lis Aganis, Quaderni del fare 3, Rovereto in Piano (PN), 2013.

S. Vitri, P. Visentini (a cura di), Il Palù alle sorgenti del Livenza: ricerca archeologica e tutela ambientale, Atti del convegno (Polcenigo, 16 aprile 1999), Rovereto in Piano (PN), 2002.

whc.unesco.org/en/list/1363

www.unesco.beniculturali.it

www.palafittes.org/it/

www.unescovarese.com/

www.comune.polpenazzedelgarda.bs.it

www.comune.piadena.cr.it

www.comune.pordenone.it/museoarcheologico

The pile dwellings are mostly bankside settlements located near lakes, rivers or bogs. Their location in anaerobic environments (without oxygen) has allowed an excellent preservation of organic materials that have provided a wealth of information about life in the first European farming communities. Agricultural practices, livestock and technological innovations have been reconstructed with a high degree of accuracy, providing an insight into daily life between 5000 and 500 BC. This time span of more than 4,000 year, coincides with one of the most important stages in human history.

The oldest description of a dwelling arrangement similar to a stilt house can be found in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus; In one of his travel reports he described a group of houses standing on piles in a Thrace lake.
In Europe, the first remains of piles where uncovered on the banks of the Lake Zurich in the early decades of the nineteenth century. A more systematic research was carried out only a few years later, in Switzerland and in Italy. In Lombardy one of the most important researchers is abbot Antonio Stoppani (1824-1891), who was the first to identify the Varese area settlements. In Piedmont Bartolomeo Gastaldi (1818-1879) , a distinguished professor of Geology discovered the Mercurago pile dwelling at Lake Maggiore in 1860.

Pile dwellings are huts standing on piles, grouped up together to form villages. These structures, featuring a horizontal wooden platform supporting them, could be built either directly on a lake, swamp or river or on the bank of any such water body. Depending on the type of soil, the climate and the specific needs of the inhabitants pile may either sit on reclaimed land (above ground) or be aerial (suspended above the water). Unlike the above ground pile dwellings, which feature a base of superimposed horizontal poles, the above water ones stand on vertical pointed supporting piles, the lower end of which is pointed to be more easily inserted in the ground.
The suspended structures can be joined together and connected to the main land by means of walkways; alternatively there could be a single horizontal plankboard that covers the whole group of houses.
Building materials included, in addition to wood poles and tree trunks also straw and reeds.
Living in villages like these had several advantages: the dwellings were close to the water bodies (lakes and rivers), that is close to water and food but at the same time, being raised above water, the houses did not suffer from the rising and lowering of the waters and were harder to reach by enemies and wild animals.

The excavation of the pile-dwelling sites, in addition to detailed analysis of the settlements also allowed the recovery of a large number of artefacts, often in excellent conditions. The most important findings for the material culture , such as fragments of pottery and other tools, have allowed researchers to take ‘snapshots’ the daily lives of people who lived in Europe in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Bone combs, ambers, needles and weaving tools, hoes, ploughs, food remains, votive statuettes, vegetable fibre containers, melting pots, axes, drills and blades have allowed researchers to date and document the activities of the pile-dwellings inhabitants. Data collected this way allowed us to assume that the European prehistoric man hunted game, farmed the land and weaved garments and other artefacts. Some products with distinctive features, such as tiaras or daggers, have also helped understanding how the people of the various regions of continental Europe influenced each other and as well as reconstructing the routes of trade and of cultural contamination between the different areas.

The pile-dwelling site of Fiavè was subject to thorough, systematic excavations between 1969 and 1975. During the eighties and nineties it also underwent a palaeo-environmental investigation. Several pre and protohistoric permanent settlements were identified in Fiavè: the oldest features both houses on lands and reclaimed land and the younger ones consist of above-water pile dwellings. The Lake Carera site features a rich museum, a true treasure trove of artefacts unearthed by the excavations. In addition to the ceramic materials there is also evidence of metalworking (melting pots and stone matrices) and some amber beads of Baltic origin. The finds are all on display at the Fiavé Pile Dwellings Museum.

This settlement, located at the entrance of the Ponale stream, was accidentally discovered in 1929. Excavations carried out between 1936 and 1937 revealed more than 10,000 poles and a large-sized planked floor (probably a raised platform). The site has been dated between the Early and Middle Bronze Age. Today in Ledro, in addition to the Lake Ledro Pile Dwelling Museum it is also possible to visit a life-size replica of a pile dwellings village. The structure allows a full-immersion experience, a historical journey bringing visitors back to the dawn of European civilization.

The first findings in Lavagnone date back to 1880. The excavations intensified after 1987 and laid grounds to speculate that the village had not always and consistently occupied the same areas: while in the Bronze Age the pile dwellings stood in the most central part of the basin, later the whole village was moved on the bank. Most of the materials recovered from the excavations are exhibited in the “G. Rambotti” museum in Desenzano del Garda; the best known and remarkable finding is the famous Lavagnone plough (about 2000 BC).

This site, investigated mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth century, is the first Italian pile dwellings site to ever undergo a scientific study (in 1860). The metal, glass and especially wooden findings are particularly important and remarkable; the most remarkable are certainly three wooden wheels which testify the technological prowess achieved in the construction of wagons. The materials are on display in the archaeological museums of Arona and Turin and at the Museo Fiorentino.

The first research in Piadena dates back to 1800 and uncovered numerous remains of poles driven into the ground. The latest researches (between 1982 and 1986) made it possible to ascertain that the village was developed in the middle of the water basin as well as to identify the areas for the homes and the open areas. Thanks to the many findings, preserved both in Piadena and in Rome the village is thought to have been inhabited from the end of the Early Bronze Age and the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age.

The village of Lucone, featuring in documents since 1800, seems to have had a rather long life: from the beginnings of the Early Bronze Age to the late Middle Bronze Age. This site is currently subject to thorough research, both via excavations and surface collections and so far it yielded archaeological finds but also the remains of several plants and animals, providing information on food and economy of the settlement.

The Palù wetland, near the Livenza river sources, extends in a natural basin of great beauty encircled by the limestone hills of Monte Consiglio on one side and the low hills that separate it from the surrounding flood plain on the other. The archaeological relevance of this site was already known in the nineteenth century but was not recognized until since 1965, when a drainage channel was dug in the centre of the basin, thus allowing collection of many prehistoric artefacts. In 1981 more systematic and thorough researches started and continued until the end of the 1990s, uncovering almost a thousand structural elements of the wooden huts. The excavations brought to light the remains of a Late Neolithic pile-dwelling village, dated between 4500 and 3600 BC. New archaeological researches, undertaken since 2013 have confirmed the importance of the site for the understanding of the relationship between man and the environment during the Neolithic. The findings are on display at the Friuli Occidentale archaeological museum in Pordenone.

The first findings in the Frassino lake date back to the early 1980s. The underwater excavations have brought to light material dated between the end of the Early and the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age: ceramic sets, often decorated or engraved, shells, metal, bones, stone and wood tools. The preservation of vertical and horizontal structural wooden elements in water, together with a remarkable concentration of finds, further reinforces the uniqueness of the discovery of this site and their fundamental importance for the understanding of construction techniques of the period.

Just a few meters away from the shore of Biandronno, on the Lake Varese, lies the oldest prehistoric pile-dwelling site of the Alps. It was discovered in 1863, but excavations began in 1878. The researches of the 1950s and 1970-80s focussed in particular on the middle of the island. Pilings, structural and cultural elements date back to the last centuries of the sixth millennium BC: prehistoric men lived in the site for over 4000 years from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (about 5300-900 BC). Since 2006 new excavations carried out on the surfaced lands, in addition to underwater searches (never tried before 2012) combined with geological surveys of Lake Varese and the site, made it possible to verify the artificial origin of Isolino Virginia: a Tell in a moist environment. Most of the material that came to light during the excavations is stored in the archaeological museum of Villa Mirabello in Varese.

Experimental archaeology tests the ancient manufacturing and building techniques in an attempt to verify them. This discipline can be regarded as complementary to classical archaeological research as it aims to find the consistency of assumptions made. In pre and proto-historical archaeology this research and testing technique is well developed; it is no wonder then, that several pile-dwelling sites are characterized by the presence of (full-scale) reproductions of village sections. In Ledro, for example, there are three huts and a wooden support platform. These areas, particularly useful for educational purposes, are the ideal setting for theme workshops: weaving, clay modelling and stone engravings are just some of the activities of prehistoric lie the village has shed light upon.

Wood is the main material used in the construction of pile-dwelling villages. A plant tissue found in the trunks of trees, wood is part of the organic materials. Organic materials, in archaeology, are the most difficult to find: their vegetable or animal nature makes conservation difficult. Along with wood, leather, plant fibres and seeds, organic materials remain more or less unaltered only in particular circumstances, where the presence of oxygen (and thus of life) is very limited or absent. Suitable places for this type of conservation are the water bodies and wetlands: for this reason the pile-dwelling sites have yielded huge quantities of remains and even pieces of housing facilities.

Ferdinand Keller (1800-1881)

In the winter of 1854 the works for the construction of a port started in Meilen, on Lake Zurich, following the lowering of the water level unearthed relics and wooden stakes scattered on the ground. The archaeologist Ferdinand Keller interpreted the expanses of poles as remnants of prehistoric villages, thus starting the archaeological research in the wetlands and one of the most fascinating adventures in European archaeology.

Andrew Ellicott Douglass (Windsor County, 1867 – Tucson, 1962)

A professor of the University of Arizona, Douglass was the main theoretician of the dendrochronology, a method of dating the tree (and thus wood) based on the growth pattern of rings on the trunk. This system, developed from 1906 onwards, was vital for dating the pile-dwelling sites. Dendrochronology is based on three principles: the trees, in areas where there is a clear distinction between seasons, produce a new growth ring each year, easily identified in the cross section of the trunk; the trees living in the same geographical area and which belong to the same species of wood are characterized by similar growth rings; similar ring sequences can be compared one with each other. The comparison of similar sequences, some of which can be provided with an absolute date, makes it possible to identify the year of felling of a tree and consequently of the handicrafts made from it.

Bartolomeo Gastaldi (Turin, 1818 – Turin, 1879)

A professor of geology and mineralogy, Bartolomeo Gastaldi was a man with an eclectic spirit and many interests. As a boy, against the wishes of his father, he devoted himself to Palaeontology and nature trips instead of studying Law. Gastaldi discovered one of the first pile dwellings identified in Europe: The Mercurago pile-dwelling, in the province of Novara. This stilt house was brought to light by chance, and the first traces of its existence were found in the mid-nineteenth century. Thanks to Gastaldi first (1860-1862) and then to the Piedmont Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage the site was gradually and thoroughly inspected and researched since 1955. Gastaldi had a pioneering scientific approach to this work.

Antonio Stoppani (1824-1891)

Antonio Stoppani was the director of Milan’s Museo Civico and the President of the Italian Society of Natural Sciences. Stoppani also fought in the Five Days of Milan riot. A Professor of Geology at the University of Pavia after the Unification of Italy in 1861 he then in 1867 moved to the newly founded Polytechnic of Milan to teach Geology. He devoted himself to the exploration of Varese lakes with E. Desor and G. Mortillet: in 1863 he discovered pilings along the southeast shore of Isolino Virginia (at that time called Isola Camilla) and the pile-dwellings of the historic centre of Bodio.

Renato Perini (1924-2007)

Renato Perini directed, from 1969 to 1987, the archaeological researches in Fiavé, coordinating an interdisciplinary research group and publishing 4 volumes dedicated to the most important excavation campaigns (1969-1976). A primary school teacher, later on he moved to the Office of Archaeological Heritage of Trento. Perini was a top on-field archaeologist who even received an honorary degree from the University of Innsbruck in 1990. After about a century of scientific debate about the nature of the Alpine lake dwellings, the ruins of Fiavé have allowed to clearly recognize the presence of multiple types of villages: those where the dwellings were on reclaimed lakeside lands, those where the dwellings were on water and those that featured both: some dwellings on the ground and some on water.

The rock drawings in Valcamonica (Brescia) are petroglyphs dating, back to prehistoric times, just like the pile dwellings. The First Italian site to be added to the list of World Heritage (1979), the Rock drawings in Valcamonica is an extremely important site due to its close connection with the history of man. Like the pile dwellings, the drawings let us know more about the uses and customs of our ancestors. They depict animals, humans, wagons and ploughs thus telling the story of the spreading of agriculture and also weapons (daggers, axes, halberds): these finds are our ‘stone windows’ on the past.

The archaeological area of ​​Barumini is one of the largest nuragic villages of Sardinia. Unearthed in the 1950s by the archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu, it had been built in several stages since the fifteenth century BC. The site, a UNESCO heritage site since 1997, includes an impressive nuraghe and a surrounding village of round huts. Like the pile-dwelling sites, Barumini gives us a glimpse of life in the centuries before Christ, and tells us more about living habits of the time of construction.

Bankside: of a house, settlement or other structure: located on the banks of a river or lake, or of any other waterway.

Melting pot: a container for melting metals. Figuratively it may also mean a place, culture or even a person which embodies and contains several different elements fused together.

Palaeo-environmental: pertaining to the environmental conditions that characterized the past of a place.

Plankboard: several planks joined together side by side to form a single plane.

Tell: It means hill and is a type of archaeological site, the result of accumulation and subsequent erosion of the materials left by the human occupation of a site over a long period of time.