Prehistoric pile settlements in the Alps. Pile buildings

This object world heritage UNESCO includes 111 small individual sites (among 937 known to archaeologists) on which the remains of pile buildings (dwellings on stilts) are located. The complex covers 6 countries of alpine and subalpine Europe and consists of the remains of prehistoric settlements dating back to between 5000 and 500 BC. Fifty-six monuments are located in Switzerland.

Due to its location on water, partially underwater and in wetlands, the organic materials enjoyed exceptional storage conditions, which is of great interest for research in the fields of archaeobotany and archaeozoology. By studying organic materials, scientists were able to get an accurate picture of the way of life of early agricultural societies in Alpine Europe: their agriculture, animal husbandry, and metalworking skills.

Thanks to the possibilities of dendrochronology, wooden elements of buildings become invaluable archaeological sources. They allow you to understand technology and architectural solutions, along which entire prehistoric villages were built over very long periods of time.

Found fragments of canoes and wooden wheels from two-wheeled carts (dating to around 3400 BC) reconstruct the picture of trade routes through the Alps and nearby plains. Trade in flint, amber, gold, shells and ceramics took place through these ancient routes.

All of the above facts provide insight into the life of about 30 different cultural groups that flourished in their stilt houses among the alpine landscapes.

The complex of prehistoric pile dwellings represents a clearly defined geographical area, in which they were discovered and in which all cultural groups lived, during the period of existence of the buildings. By archaeological standards, the structures are virtually intact and therefore perfectly reflect the diversity of cultural groups, their customs and historical periods. Individual elements of the complex and its common boundaries remarkable for their integrity. The visual integrity of some of the monuments is explained by the fact that they belong to the same large settlement.

The physical remains are well preserved and documented. The structure of all archaeological layers preserved in the ground or under water is authentic and does not contain any modern inclusions.

The monuments cannot be presented to the public due to the fact that they are mainly hidden under water. In addition, in regions with intensive urbanization, pile settlements are under threat, for this reason the exposure is under open air not yet possible. IN this moment The buildings have been partially reconstructed in museums.

General conservation goals are translated into specific projects at the international, national and regional levels. Funding for projects for the Secretariat and participating States is provided by Switzerland. Proposed measures that can have a significant impact on heritage conservation are limited. Given the fragility of the remains and the threat from urban areas, the monument requires monitoring and funding from all 6 participating countries.

PILE BUILDINGS, prehistoric village-type settlements located on platforms that rest on stilts; they were first discovered in and around the Alps mountain range. This type of village can still be seen today - among primitive tribes living at the mouths of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, on the Sunda Islands (Kalimantan, New Guinea etc.), in Africa and other parts of the world.

Previously, it was customary to call them lake dwellings, since they were characteristic of prehistoric cultures of the Alpine lake region. Most of their archaeological remains are in Switzerland, but they have also been found in Savoy (France), Northern Italy, Upper Austria, Slovenia and Bosnia. These buildings are divided into two main types: 1) the lake settlement itself, where a number of huts are installed on a platform, the support of which is provided by piles driven into the bottom of the lake, or this platform lies on a road made of brushwood, which is supported by the same piles; 2) a swamp settlement, the huts of which are located on a platform laid directly on the swampy soil.

Since many substances of organic origin are well preserved in lake water, which in another environment could completely decompose, our knowledge of the material culture of lake inhabitants is quite extensive. Wooden utensils, fruits, grain and even pieces of fabric were discovered. In many places there are still remains of piles driven into the lake bed; for example, on a clear day they can be seen through the water of Lake Neuchâtel; during dry periods they simply protrude above the surface in some places.

The lake inhabitants were engaged in fishing and farming, but they also had domesticated animals. In the places of their settlements, grains of barley and wheat, flaxseed, beans, plum pits and apple seeds, bones of cattle, sheep, pigs and goats were found. These people sailed on dugout shuttles, set traps and nets with weights, and wove clothes from hand-woven wool and linen threads; the huts were woven from twigs and wicker, coated with clay and covered with straw. Although they still used flint tools made from chipped pebbles, they more often used “sharpened” axes made of jade and serpentine. Such a chopper or adze was usually set into a deer antler, to which a wooden handle was attached, and small cutting tips were inserted directly into the handle made of wood or deer antler. Animal bones were also widely used - as awls, blades, arrowheads and other household items.

The main core of the lake dwelling culture formed in the region of the Western Alps. More than 125 such settlements are known near four large lakes in the cantons of Neuchâtel, Geneva, Thurgau, and even larger numbers were reported in other cantons of Switzerland - Zurich and others.

In the eastern Alps, the settlements of the Middle and Late Neolithic eras were formed rather under the direct influence of neighboring lands, and although they have common Alpine features, in terms of the type of culture these eastern settlements significantly different from Western ones. The most studied pile settlements of the eastern range are located near Altheim and Mondsee (Upper Austria) and in the territory of the former Yugoslavia - in swamps near Ljubljana (Slovenia), near Vučedol (Slavonia) and in Donja Dolina near Banja Luka (Bosnia); the last settlement existed at the end of the Bronze Age.

In 1854, in Switzerland, on Lake Zurich, settlements were opened, partially standing in the water. Piles were driven into the bottom of the shallow water and platforms were placed on the piles. Sometimes - for each hut separately, sometimes - for the entire settlement. In some settlements, the piles immediately support the roof and form a frame for the walls. In general, several similar technologies.

Quadrangular houses in pile settlements were divided into sections. Each section probably housed a family.

The inhabitants of the pile buildings already had ceramics. They cultivated wheat, barley, millet, peas, lentils, beans, parsnips, carrots, cabbage, and parsley. Later - more spelled and oats.

They had flax and hemp, and they knew how to make clothes from them. Combed flax, threads, pieces of wicker and woven fabric are found in Switzerland.

The “svainiki” had a dog, a pig, a goat, a sheep, and a cow. In the most recent populations a horse also appears.

The discovery of pile settlements was a major scientific event of that time. It was discussed, and not only in circles of narrow specialists. In D'Hervilly's book about a "prehistoric" boy, the main character goes directly from the caves where they hunt animals of the Ice Age, straight into a pile settlement. D'Hervilly "made" two different eras in his book, but there were pile settlements! Albeit much later than cave life and wild horse hunting.

For scientists, almost the main question was: why were pile structures built at all? It’s a huge job, the purpose of which is not obvious.

Some pile settlements are huge - like Al Penka on Lake Zurich - 40 thousand square meters, 4 hectares. Considering that all this was built with stone tools, the work done was simply incredible.

As usual, there are a lot of assumptions:

- “svainiki” wanted to be closer to the water to fish;

They were very afraid of wild animals;

They worshiped lakes;

They sailed on boats; it was more convenient to tie the boats to the platform than to pull them ashore.

1 D'Hervilly D. Adventures of a prehistoric boy. M, 1966.

There are about a hundred more assumptions of varying degrees of mild and severe insanity. One of the assumptions, far from being the main one, is that the “pillars” tried to protect themselves from enemies.

Indeed: try to climb onto the platform of a pile settlement, even if the platform is located not far from the shore. Once you drag the walkways onto the platform connecting it to the shore, the space between the shore and the platform turns into a moat. And if the platform is far from the shore, landing troops even from rafts is not so easy. After all, energetic people with spears and stone axes are eagerly awaiting any enemy on the platform.

The appearance of pile settlements suggests that the ancient farmers understood well: they really had something to take. Indeed, the only thing you can steal from a hunter is his reserves of meat - and even then in winter. You can “grab” more reserves of good stone for tools and devour the hunter himself and his family members. Frankly speaking, not much works out.

But the farmer has a lot of things... Stocks of bread, beans, millet... Things that can be carried away and stored for a long time. And at absolutely any time of the year. Yes, and cattle can be stolen. It's one thing to hunt a huge elk or bison. It is quite another to slaughter a domestic cow.

To protect against whom were platforms built on lakes? From other farmers or from hunters roaming around? Most likely, for protection from both. But the farmers ancient Europe were a newcomer population, not local in their roots. Southerners, brunettes with long arms and legs, skinny and thin. Mediterranean race. The very desire to “seclude yourself” from the outside world, including by settling on the water, is very typical of “non-locals”. Always and for all nations, a lot of time passes before immigrants feel confident in a new land. Child believed that during the “Neolithic Revolution” the population of Europe was completely replaced. Those who did not assimilate into the ranks of the aliens and were not exterminated fled to the almost uninhabitable spaces of the North 1 . This is hardly a fair opinion.

Back in the late 1970s, the German scientist Häusler argued that “in Europe there was a continuous development of culture and population up to the historically attested Indo-European languages ​​and cultures” 2 .

The appearance of the inhabitants of Northern Europe - from the Neolithic to the present time - also speaks in favor of the fact that the population has not completely changed. The same Nordic race. As it arose at the beginning of the settlement of Europe by sapiens, it continues to live to this day. And during the “Neolithic Revolution” she also lived... Not throughout Europe, though. In southern and western Europe, population changes took place. In it, the former Nordic population was either exterminated or quickly assimilated. Indeed, even if hundreds of hunters adopt their type of farming from farmers, there will still be tens of times more aliens than them. The former population will quickly disappear among the newcomers.

But north and east of the Alps the population did not change at all! The beauty of paleogenetics is that it allows you to compare living organisms and any fossil remains of organisms. And establish a relationship between them.

Child G. At the origins of European civilization. M, 1952. "HauslerA. Die Indoeuropaisierung Criechenlands nach Aussage der Grab-und Bestattungssitten // Slovenska archeologia. 1981. XXXX. S. 61.

It turns out: south of the Alps there live people whose ancestors did not live in Paleolithic Europe. Their ancestors sadly (or maybe joyfully? Who cares!) hunted various animals North Africa and the Near East, they collected wild plants... Until the “Neolithic Revolution” made them numerous and powerful.

But to the north of the Alps live those whose ancestors hunted mammoths, painted animals and people on the walls of caves, threw blankets on horses, and turned monochromatic aurochs into spotted livestock.

Then their ancestors fled from the lands flooded by the Flood to the south, developed new ecological zones and gradually lost the achievements of the Paleolithic era.

But they, the inhabitants of Northern Europe, retain a drop of the blood of those who came to Europe from the Near East 35-32 thousand years ago. And those who lived in Europe before them... The blood of the creators of Torralba, Drachenloch, Terra Amata, Monte Circeo...

Neolithic Northerners

At the beginning of the IV millennium BC. In Northern Europe, a huge community appears: the culture of funnel-shaped beakers. This culture arises in the same territory where the people of the Maglemose culture lived. Apparently, they were direct descendants of this culture. In the VI-V millennia BC. carriers of the Maglemose culture mastered the rudiments of agriculture and began to raise cows... Not all, but some groups of them, in northern Germany and Denmark.

In the 4th millennium BC. the culture of funnel-shaped beakers flooded vast areas from southern Sweden to the Danube and from Bavaria to Poland, and in the 3rd millennium - to Volyn. The name itself comes from the characteristic shape of one of the vessels - a funnel-shaped goblet with a neck. This culture also has vessels for storing bulk solids and liquids - pot-bellied, with a round or flat bottom.

Hoards of stone axes, polished mop-legs and adzes, microliths inserted into bone sickles prove that this is a Stone Age culture.

Funnel-shaped cups grew the same set of crops as the “svainiki”: peas, lentils, beans, millet, barley, wheat.

In the settlements of funnel-shaped beakers, sheds and rooms for drying bread, barns on stilts, and semi-dugout houses are found. Such houses are very different from structures on stilts. Pile long houses are still for a more southern climate. The houses of the funnel-shaped cups are the dwellings of people rooted in the harsh earth, where there is a real winter with frosts and persistent snows.

The dead were buried in funnel-shaped cups in ground burial grounds, and later - under small mounds. In all the burials there are people of the same Nordic race, which is well known to us.

Northern Europe did not assimilate into the hordes of aliens from the Near East. The Nordic race acted more cunningly: it switched to agriculture and cattle breeding. Without population change, even without mass assimilation. It reached a completely new level of cultural development without sacrificing itself.

Chapter 8 THE BEGINNING OF THE ARIES

The neolithization of Europe gave birth to the Indo-Europeans.

K. Renfrew

According to most serious researchers, the emergence of the ancestral Proto-Indo-European language is associated with the Funnel Beaker culture. Was it the language of one small people, which was spoken by other peoples of Northern Europe close to it? Was it a language created specifically for communication between people of different cultures and languages? Or the language of one of the tribes, adopted for communication between people of the same community? Scientists debate this. There are many opinions, and they are all well founded.

In any case, it was at the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. This ancient proto-language began to disintegrate and divide into daughter languages. The ancestor language for all Indo-European languages, which are spoken today by more than half of humanity.

Indo-Europeans began to be called that because they found common features between the languages ​​of the inhabitants of India and Europe. We do not know what the Funnel Beaker people called themselves. We know that some of their descendants who conquered Iran and Northern India, called themselves Aryans, Aryans. There is still debate about what this word means. Either “the best”... Or “free”... Or “the best” and “free” at the same time...

It is not entirely correct to call all Indo-Europeans Aryans, but what can you do? Other words are unknown to us.

The Proto-Indo-European language, the language of funnel-shaped beakers, reflected the realities of agriculture and cattle breeding. Crow-Covid Beakers became farmers and multiplied incredibly: now a lot of people could live in a small area.

Like all farmers, the Aryans soon populated everything they could and developed their ancestral territory. They felt crowded and began to look for new lands to settle. Preferably with a similar climate and natural conditions. Unlike the inhabitants of the Near East, they knew how to live and farm in a temperate climate. In the same IV millennium BC. A prominence burst out of Northern Europe - part of the Indo-Europeans went to the Balkans and the Black Sea region. This “southern group” of Aryans flooded the southern Russian steppes. Perhaps mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses that had not yet been eaten were still living out their lives there... The Aryans passed by them, splitting along the road. Some of them remained in the Balkans and gradually penetrated into Asia Minor. Others flooded the North Caucasus, crossed Caucasus ridge and began to develop the Armenian Highlands and penetrate into the same Asia Minor.

Some of them reached Southern Urals, and then in several waves it flooded Western Siberia to the Yenisei and Kazakhstan.

Others entered Iran, settled it and moved to Northern India. The word Iran itself, by the way, means “land of the Aryans.”

In the 2nd millennium BC. New tribes of Indo-Europeans burst out of Europe. They flooded Eastern Europe, reached Siberia and, together with the first Indo-Europeans of the “southern” group, penetrated all the way to China. To the muddy yellow waters of the Yellow River bend, where the monsoon forests end and the steppe and forest-steppe, familiar to the Aryans and beloved by them, begins. .

In Europe itself, they also did not sit quietly at all. In the 2nd and early 1st millennia BC, Indo-Europeans settled Scandinavia, Western Europe, Apennine Peninsula, Balkan Peninsula, Britain and Central Europe. Already in historical times, part of the Aryans conquered the Baltic states for the second time and Eastern Europe- Balts and Slavs.

Unique historical objects, prehistoric pile settlements, revealing the secrets of the distant past, were discovered on the territory of six modern European countries, including Austria.

A total of 111 sites were found, and in 2011 the prehistoric pile settlements in the vicinity of the Alps were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Along the banks of rivers and lakes of the Alps and their foothills, people of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages built their houses on stilts. Excavations of only a few of them fully and accurately reproduce the life, culture and traditions of ancient farmers. As the best archaeological record of Europe's prehistoric settlements, these wooden structures bear evidence of many different cultures from centuries past. The salty lake water perfectly preserved the buildings themselves, wooden utensils, grain, fruits and remains of fabrics.

Centuries-old layers contain in some places up to 25 settlements of different times, successively lying on top of each other. The unique history of pile settlements in the Alps, their highest cultural value and excellent preservation make the villages a unique part of world heritage.

Alps– one of the most popular destinations for tourist activists from all over the world. There they ride from top to bottom on skis, snowboards and other sleds. They climb up the mountains from below. They also walk lengthwise and crosswise on their legs. Even the word “mountaineering” openly hints at where it originated.

Live in Alps appeared a long time ago, and today we will try to remember how people lived in those places a couple of thousand years BC.

Germany. This is how they lived...

While the ancient Greeks and Egyptians intensively built their pyramids and ancient temples, Alps people built huts on wooden stilts, and they also lived well. They built their houses mainly on the coastal areas of lakes, or simply in swamps. Apparently, they chose softer places so that the tree could be embedded as deeply as possible. Stick it into the firmament of even the strongest inhabitant Alpine mountains It didn’t work out, and it was decided to quit this thankless task and use a more pliable surface. There was also a problem with the building materials. They saw stone as rarely as the Egyptians saw wood, and metal structures were invented a little later. Therefore, the choice in favor of wooden logs was obvious.

As scientific research has shown, despite everything, these wooden dwellings are very well preserved. It is difficult to imagine that a modern house made of wood, especially on the water, would last three thousand years. However, for those homes it turned out to be possible. Thanks to the salinity of the water and the presence of useful minerals in it, the buildings have survived to this day. Now, however, many of them are under threat. The tentacles of urbanization have reached such hard-to-reach places.

Stilt huts are scattered along all Alpine mountains and are located in the territories of 6 states Europe. They are of great historical significance and tell new, previously unknown facts about the life of Alpine settlements. The entire complex of such dwellings is included in the list UNESCO World Heritage Site V 2011 year.