Wauwilermoos or Egolzwil 3 is one of the 111 serial sites of the

UNESCO World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps are a series of prehistoric pile dwelling (or stilt house) settlements in and around the Alps built from about 5000 to 500 BC on the edges of lakes, rivers or wetlands. In 2011, 111 sites located variousl ...

'', of which are 56 located in Switzerland.

Geography

The site is located on the former Wauwilersee lakeshore in the municipalities of

Egolzwil Egolzwil is a municipality in the district of Willisau in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. History Egolzwil is first mentioned around 1160 as ''Eigoltiswile''. During World War II, Allied soldiers who were caught after their escape from the ...

Wauwil Wauwil is a municipality in the district of Willisau in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. Geography Wauwil has an area, , of . Of this area, 72.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 9.9% is forested. The rest of the land, (18%) is ...

and

Schötz Schötz is a municipality in the district of Willisau in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. On 1 January 2013 the former municipality of Ohmstal merged into the municipality of Schötz.Canton of Luzern The canton of Lucerne (german: Kanton Luzern rm, Chantun Lucerna french: Canton de Lucerne it, Canton Lucerna) is a canton of Switzerland. It is located in the centre of Switzerland. The population of the canton (as of ) is . , the populati ...

in Switzerland. The settlement comprises , and the buffer zone including the lake area comprises in all. Around 20000 BC a branch of the Reuss glacier formed a valley whose deepest point was approximately below the present surface. At

Schötz Schötz is a municipality in the district of Willisau in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. On 1 January 2013 the former municipality of Ohmstal merged into the municipality of Schötz.moraines. During the retreat of the glacier, meltwater jammed between the moraines. Thus in the Wauwilermoos plain three lakes were formed: ''Wauwilersee'', ''Hagimoos'' and ''Mauensee''; latter still exists. The meltwater outsourced enormous amounts of sand, so that the lakes never were particularly deep. The depth of Wauwilersee amounted only to about . To 17000 BC the area was finally free of ice, and soon first pioneer plants settled, such as dwarf birch and mountain avens on, typically for a post-glacial

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...

landscape. Circa 14000 BC the three lakes started silting up with sand, lake marl and peat. As a result of climatic changes, the lake levels have fluctuated over the course of the Stone Age era. The water level rose several times, and the area covered by water increased. On the one hand, the waves formed the beach ridges between Wauwil and Ettiswil. On the other hand, the radicals old Stone Age and middle Stone Age settlement sites were flooded by the rising water, wiped and finally covered with lake sediments. The Neolithic lake dwellings also were covered with lake

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sa ...

s. At the former ''Wauwilersee'' lake area,

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficient ...

was mined between 1820 and about 1920, and the lake was drained around 1859. To date, the area is still drained in order to make it usable for agriculture. The moorlands in Wauwilermoos therefore disappeared except for small residual areas. Since July 2009 there is also a waterbird and migratory bird reserve of national importance, to protect migratory and waterfowl year-round living in Switzerland.

Description

''Egolzwil 3'' is one of the earliest lake-dwelling settlements in Switzerland. Therefore, it contains an important archaeological Egolzwil culture reference assemblage. The houses in this region were built directly on the ground, as the well-preserved house floors with hearths prove. The village was inhabited only for six years, and thus ''shows a short but precisely defined episode within the Neolithic period. Moreover, it provides favourable preservation conditions for wood and other organic materials such as plants and bone''. The remains of the settlements are an important site for palaeo-ecological studies on the Wauwil bog (German: ''Wauwilermoos'').

Excavations and finds

After the draining of the lake in the mid-19th century, first Stone Age settlements have been found in the vast moorland. Due to the excavations that were carried out until 1929, the Wauwil plain became known as an archaeological region. A research based on scientific criteria began in the early 1930s with excavations in Schötz and at the Neolithic site ''Egolzwil E2'' under the direction of Hans Reinerth. Emil Vogt started systematic excavations from 1950 to 1966 on the settlement sites E3, E4 and E5. After the excavations under René Wyss in 1965 and 1985–88, eleven

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

and 30 Mesolithic sites were known at the Wauwilermoos, at the beginning of the 21st century even more than 120 Stone Age sites. The first settlements rose after the withdrawal of the Reuss glacier around 13000 BC at six sites. Late Paleolithic (approx. 12000-9000 BC) includes 46 sites situated on an old elevated shoreline of the former lake. These artifacts, among them many burins and typical back and wide lace tee scratches, are attributed to the Fürstein culture. The well-documented Egolzwil culture was named after the ''Wauwilermoos'' (''E3'') site, dated shortly after 4300 BC. In addition to the eponymous locality Egolzwil E3, there are four other settlement sites. The short-lived village was built at the ground level in the sedimentation zone of the lake. Its houses were made of timber ash, oak and alder. The interior was illuminated and heat by a centrally disposed fireplace. The hand-shaped ceramic consisted mainly of pots and bowls with two round-bowed handles and an average volume of 1.8 to 2.8 liters, along with some liquid containers (volume of 6-8 liters) and individual so-called ''Wauwilerbecher'' cups. Unique are sickles with a straight wooden handle and diagonally sweeping knives made of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

that was fixed with

birch tar Birch tar or birch pitch is a substance (liquid when heated) derived from the dry distillation of the bark of the birch tree. Compounds It is composed of phenols such as guaiacol, cresol, xylenol, and creosol. Ancient and modern uses Bir ...

, axe shafts, clubs, sticks, furrows, and a textile jewelry container with shells from the Mediterranean area.

Protection

As well as being part of the 56 Swiss sites of the UNESCO World Heritage Site ''

'', the settlement is also listed in the Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance as a ''Class A'' object of national importance. Hence, the area is provided as a historical site under federal protection, within the meaning of the Swiss Federal Act on the nature and cultural heritage (German: Bundesgesetz über den Natur- und Heimatschutz NHG) of 1 July 1966. Unauthorised researching and purposeful gathering of findings represent a criminal offense according to Art. 24.

Literature

* Peter J. Suter, Helmut Schlichtherle et al.: ''Pfahlbauten – Palafittes – Palafitte''. Palafittes, Biel 2009. . * A. de Capitani, Mathias Seifert, Trivun Sormaz and Werner E. Stöckli: ''Egolzwil 3, die Keramik der neolithischen Seeufersiedlung''. Archaeologische Schriften Luzern 15.1, Kantonsarchäologie Luzern 2013, .

References

External links

*
Archäologischer Lernpfad Wauwilermoos
{{Coord, 47, 10, 56.55, N, 8, 0, 59.36, E, display=title, region:CH-LU_type:landmark Prehistoric pile dwellings in Switzerland Wauwil Egolzwil Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Lucerne Archaeological sites in Switzerland