During the Neolithic, axeheads made of green dolerite were drilled on both sides, with hollow bits made of elder wood, and sand. This produced double conical cores. At the lakeside settlement of Ermatingen-Westerfeld, during the drilling work, a semi-finished axe head broke apart. Even 5000 years later, one can imagine the frustration of the stone crafter.

This sandal was found at the lakeside settlement of St. Blaise / Bains des Dames, during highway construction. It is one of only a very few representatives of prehistoric shoes. The shoe was made of various strips of oak bast that were threaded between twisted fiberstrings, and had thin laces by which it was tied to the foot and ankle.

The village chief was very proud, even to the Lagazzi, an amber necklace had arrived! A very powerful talisman, a transparent stone that had the color of the sun! It was difficult to get it: it came in fact from distant northern seas and the path that those small objects had to travel was long, perhaps together with other precious goods such as tin.

Did this spiral and the dagger belong to the same wealthy person, who lived on the shore of the Neolithic Greifensee? Or perhaps, so much wealth belonged to two or more households? What is certain, is that “stone” was the main material for the manufacture of tools, weapons, and also jewelry. These copper items must have been extremely valuable and desirable. The dagger and the spiral are the oldest copper artifacts ever found in the Kanton of Zurich. They were discovered during the diving excavation of the Neolithic pile dwelling settlement of Greifensee-Storen/Wildsberg.

More than one hundred meters of twined flax-fibre string are wound into this ball of yarn. It is the result of many hours of manual labour. Maybe it was meant to become fishing net. But we will never know, because it was burned in a firestorm that may have destroyed the entire village. Only its charred remains are preserved from thousands of years ago.

The lake’s narrow between Rapperswil and the Hurden headland has been an important pathway across the river, for thousands of years. The erliest bridge- and pier-works on the sandbank date to the Early Bronze Age, with later structures dated to the Iron Age, the Roman Age as well as the Middle Ages. The unusual accumulation of bronze needles and various other artefacts indicate that objects were deliberately deposited here.

This peculiar piece of timber with a hole in the middle is called a „pile shoe“. It may look like modern art, but it is a structural building element, made by the pile-dwellers. To prevent their houses from sinking into the soft ground, they anchored the piles of their buildings by inserting them into the holes of these wooden planks. This technique increased the stability of the piles and the houses they build upon them.

Beauty and daily grooming were important, even in the Neolithic: the comb found in the settlement of Zug Riedmatt is approximately 5000 years old. Combing untangles the hair and helps to get rid of pests, such as lice and ticks. The elaborately crafted comb could also be worn around the neck as a pendant, or attached to a belt, like jewellery.

This particularly well-preserved axe was discovered during the excavations in Consice (VD) “Sous Colachoz”, conducted within the “Rail 2000” project. The greenstone blade was polished carefully and is still attached to its ash wood handle.

160 years ago, these two textile fragments were discovered, then put aside and pretty much forgotten. When they were recently “rediscovered”, it became clear that they were remnants of a prehistoric sling, a predecessor of the one used by the biblical David against Goliath, thousands of years later. The sling was created with the tablet (or card) weaving technique, and its special shape required a high degree of craftsmanship. This was no simple shepherd’s sling, but rather a hunter’s or warrior’s high-tech weapon. It is the oldest discovered artifact of its kind in all of Europe.

Two flint daggers from the Early Stone Age were found in Wauwilermoos. The two prestigious objects originate from Italy and Bavaria and are a testimony to wide-ranging bartering relationships.

This delicate, thin-walled vessel has a diameter of approximately only eight centimeters, and was probably used as a drinking bowl. It was carved from the robust burl of a hazel bush. Such burls were frequently used for hemispheric vessels in the Neolithic period, because their complex grain makes them highly resistant to tears.

Finely knapped flint blades, shafted in wood, or bone, or antler, appear to have been the Neolithic warriors’ insignia. With the beginning of the Bronze Age, the blades of such daggers are increasingly made of the new metal, only retaining their organic handles.
The oldest bronze dagger blades are sometimes, decorated, which indicates that they retained some of their former symbolic meaning.

After their discovery, the pile dwellings were a huge public interest in the late 19th century. Romanticized fantasies about life in the distant past were only surpassed by the ingenuity of some scoundrels, who supplied the booming antiquities market with clumsy counterfeits. This dolerite stone blade, for example, was simply stuck into a piece of contemporary deer antler, and sold to a collector in 1859. In fact, his item would have been completely useless to anyone, especially in the Neolithic.

Excavations at the site of “Clendy Bay”, in Yverdon-les-Bains, uncovered 12 containersmade of birch, or lime bark. This 20 cm diameter base is representative example of the found artifacts. It is made of plates of bark that were sewn together with threads of bast. This type of lightweight container could be used for harvesting, or the storage and transport of goods.

This object was discovered at “Pointe de Greng”, which is one of the best-known sites on Lake Morat, due to its extensive pile field. In his spare time, during the low water levels in the winter of 1921, the surveyor Winkler drew up one of the first maps of a Bronze age pile-dwelling settlement at the site. A century later, his highly accurate work is still an essential document for understanding the site.

This strange object from the Late Bronze Age settlement looks a little like dogpoop… However, it is a unique example of a tin ingot, from the Ore Mountains, that was used as raw material in the production of bronze.

This log boat was discovered as early as 1806, off the shore of the town of Morges. Unfortunately, it was the victim of a secret extraction attemptin 1823, that resulted in the destruction of itsrear section. The front section was also illegally removed, in 1877, by two Geneva fishermen. Despite a request for restitution by the State of Vaud, it was acquired by H.-J. Gosse for the Archaeological Museum.

Wheel-shaped pendants were worn by Bronze Age lake dwellers probably as symbols for the sun and as lucky charms. This amulet shows thirteen decorative metal sheets in form of stylised humans. Worn on the body or clothes, they produced a rattling sound with every movement. Who knows, whether it was supposed to protect its wearer from harm or just attract attention?

Figurines representing people and animals,, from various sites at Lake Bourget (Savoie)
During the “Fishing for Antiques”, as well as a recent excavation, several figurines were discovered. The anthropomorphic ones are shaped like "stars", or more proportional human, but also enlarged and hermaphroditic. Others, the zoomorphs, are in the shape of birds, deer or quadrupeds.

Various metal objects and a crucible attest to the fact that during various Neolithic settlement phases in HitzkirchSeematt, copper was processed continuously. Some of the objects where found under water.

At “Clendy Bay”, in Yverdon-Les-Bains, only a few meters east of the namesake pile dwelling settlement, there stood two rows of menhirs, 45 in number. They occupied an area of about 100 by 50 meters and stood between 35 cm and 4.5 meters tall. The site was discovered in 1975, and in 1986, the stones were re-erected in their original places. This site represents the most significant megalithic construction in Switzerland.

The pile dwellers entered their houses through doors like this. The spur in the lower part of the door frame was stuck in the threshold, and served as a hinge. Straps were passed through the holes on its left side, that fixed the door to the frame. This door was discovered as early as 1868, on Lake Pfäffikon, and certainly added fuel to the "Lake Dwelling Fever" of the time.

The ash wood wheel of Corcelettes (VD) was discovered in 1987 at the bottom of Lake Neuenburger, under a 15 cm layer of sand. It is very well-preserved and was treated with a special procedure, that substituted the water in the pores of the wood with synthetic resin. The wheel was part of a cart, with two or four wheels. Various petroglyphs in Val Camonica (Northern Italy) give us an idea of what these carts might have looked like.

Around 2000 BC, someone took this small clay tablet, drew some horizontal lines along which he impressed a series of circular signs, and then baked it. What did he mean? What was this object? A calendar? An amulet? A receipt? Similar objects are found in Italy, Germany and Austria. Their meaning and purpose remain Enigmas.

This mould is made of soapstone (Lavez), which can be found in Grisons. The specific type of razorblade that was cast from this mould has so far only been found in the Alpine region (Grisons/Upper Austria). Is it possible that the pile-dwelling settlement Technikum/ Rapperswil-Jona, was home to an alpine bronze caster?

...in the Bay of Hinterhorn
During the excavations at Wangen-Hinterhorn, in 1981, the archaeologists of the Baden Württemberg Department of Monuments and Sites discovered a “pointed hat” made of linden tree bast. It was buried in an archaeological layer, associated with the „Pfyner Culture“. Ribbons of fleeced bast were fastened to the base construction of the hat, to give it a “fur-like” appearance. Not everyone in the Neolithic could afford a real fur hat, like Ötzi.

When the Stone Age got its name, this axe was still in the ground. For a long time,the fact that Neolithic pile-dwellers already worked with metal was unknown. Copper axes were rather rare and valuable. Ötzi the Iceman had one in his bag, and apparently, the pile-dwellers of Thayngen-Weier (SH) were also proud owners of one of these prestigious objects.

The harvest knife consists of a carved wooden body and four chipped flints (known as sickle-blade elements) fixed in place with plant resin, which compose the cutting edge. The handle is made of oak and it send is sharply bent so that the gathered cereal stems can be cut with a single stroke.

This miniature log boat is made oflemon tree wood and was probably someone’s toy. It measures 34 cm and was carved from a single piece. It was found at the site of “Clendy Bay”, in Yverdon-Les-Bains, and it illustrates the shape of the real log boats that were in use during the Bronze Age and the Neolithic at the Lake Neuenburgersee. It very much resembles the eleven meters long, oaken log boat that was found in Corcelettes, and dates to the Late Bronze Age (ca. 978 BC)

During the 19^th century, Robenhausen was a center in pile dwelling research. In order to finance his excavations, the farmer and legendary pile dwelling “explorer”, Jakob Messikommer, sold many of his found artifacts to buyers across the world. He even sold models of “reconstructed” pile dwellings, in a scale of 1:20. He charged thirty Swiss Francs per model. Not cheap for the time; and still, Museums across Europe were buying like crazy

Grésine is the only European site where both swords and a sword hilt mold were discovered together. The proximity of the artifacts may indicate a prehistoric smithy. Apparently, the handles were molded onto the finished blades.

Even 5000 years ago, high-quality raw material was extremely valued, and people went to great length to acquire it: These exquite silex dagger blades, with the typical honey-yellow color of the source, were imported from Grand-Pressigny (F), as far as 800 km away. The inferior raw material from the surrounding area could not be shaped this precicely and simply could not compete.

Armed with bow and arrow, Neolithic people went hunting. Their diet included deer, roedeer and wild boar. Bears, beavers and foxes were also hunted, but most likely for their fur. Most Neolithic bows were made of yew. Its wood is both hard and elastic, which made it ideal for manufacturing high quality bows.

A triangular gable made of hazel and clemantis wood, from Chalain Station 3, about 300 BC to 2900 BC.

In 2017, fragments of more than forty Neolithic braided shoes were found at the Schifflände-Maur site. A sensation! Up to then, prehistoric shoes were very rare and only single finds. The find prompted an international team of archaeologists to reconstruct detailed copies of the shoes, in order to gather more insights into the craft of prehistoric cobblers.

This nozzle was discovered around 1870, at the lakeside station of Plonjon (Eaux-Vives) in Geneva. It is bent in the shape of a horse's neck, and was connected to a bellows that was used to fan the fire of a furnace. This discovery, along with other items, such as hammers, chisels, punches, molasses moulds, casting failures and other cast-iron wastes, is testamony of a bronze-maker's workshop.

Idea:
Ludivine Marquis, Jonas Kissling, Pierre Harb, Barbara Fath

Design:
Steffen Kraut, lautschrift - agentur für visuelle gestaltung und kommunikation

Contributions:
Texts and images are the property of the respective project partners. We would like to thank them for allowing us to use them for the project "10 years - 100 stories".