What normally does not survive
Rope, textiles and seeds — things that vanish at almost every other archaeological site.
User:Mateus2019 — CC BY 3.0 de · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0
An open-air museum on Lake Constance reconstructing Stone Age and Bronze Age villages on wooden piles above the water. The original sites are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps — a group of a hundred and eleven sites across six European countries. What makes these sites scientifically exceptional is that the wood survived. In ordinary conditions wood decays and nothing remains of prehistoric settlements but stone and pottery. But these villages were built on piles in waterlogged mud that excludes oxygen, so the piles, tools, ropes, textiles and seeds survived. The result is a picture of daily life five thousand years ago available almost nowhere else. The museum reconstructs the houses at full size on wooden walkways over the water, and they can be entered. It works well with children. Hours are seasonal and it closes in winter.
Rope, textiles and seeds — things that vanish at almost every other archaeological site.
Full-size reconstructions on wooden walkways above the water.
Walking above the water and entering the houses engages them more than any case display.
Unteruhldingen on Lake Constance
The reasons are several and disputed: protection from animals and strangers, easy access to water and fishing, waste disposal, and avoiding seasonal flooding on the shore. Most likely all of them together. What matters is that the pattern recurred around the Alpine lakes for thousands of years, from around 5000 BC to 500 BC.
The distance is about two hundred kilometres, so it is a full day. But the whole area rewards it: combine it with the gardens of Mainau island or the Zeppelin Museum in nearby Friedrichshafen, or make it part of two days on Lake Constance. On its own it may not justify four hours of travel there and back.
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