02 March 2022
There is no other place where so many Neolithic pile dwellings have been uncovered as around the Alps. It is a mystery, however, how this “building boom” came to be. Researchers at the University of Basel have now uncovered new clues, and say that settlers at Lake Varese in northern Italy may have played a leading role.
When workers discovered the first pile-dwelling settlement on Lake Zurich in the mid-19th century, a whole new area of archaeological research was born. Since then, 111 pile-dwelling villages in the Alpine region have been made UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but it has so far been unclear where this unique construction method came from. Experts assumed until a few years ago that it was a local phenomenon.
Researchers led by Professor Ferran Antolín from the subject area of Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science (IPAS) at the University of Basel, however, have found new clues as to how pile-dwelling culture came to the areas north of the Alps. Prehistoric plant remains from a settlement from Lake Varese in northern Italy show the same composition as the crops from the oldest Swiss pile-dwelling settlements in Zurich and Egolzwil, Canton Lucerne. The researchers have reported their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
Durum wheat, barley, opium poppy and flax
The team took sediment cores around a prehistoric settlement on Isolino Virginia, and determined the age of the crops in the deposits using radiocarbon dating. According to these results, this artificial island appears to have been inhabited as early as 4950 to 4700 BCE. The oldest known pile-dwelling settlements in Switzerland date back to around 4300 BCE.
More:
https://www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/News/Uni-Research/7000-year-old-grains-hints-at-origin-of-Swiss-pile-dwellings.html
= new reply since forum marked as read