Die Pfahlbaufrage

Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte und zur Rekonstruktion von Feuchtbodensiedlungen

Harb, Christian

Over 170 years ago, an entire pile field came to light in connection with backfilling work in Meilen on Lake Zurich. Ferdinand Keller interpreted this as the remains of a pre-Roman pile-dwelling settlement and thus set prehistoric pile-dwelling research in motion. Today, the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps are considered the most important source for understanding the Neolithic and Bronze Age in this region and have therefore been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011. However, their exploration has not been unanimous. Did people live on or above the water? Did they erect their buildings in the water, on land or on alternating wet ground? This so-called ‘pile-dwelling question’ (Pfahlbaufrage) was so controversial that it escalated into a pile-dwelling dispute (Pfahlbaustreit). It was repeatedly fought out between archaeologists and natural scientists, was at times a proxy war between personal rivals and in the 1930s and 1940s became caught between ideological fronts. The lack of emancipation from dominant research personalities played no insignificant role in this, and interpretations have been repeatedly adapted to preconceived opinions right up to the present day.
This book traces the 170-year history of research and the development of the debate. It shows that some ideas that are still established today urgently need to be questioned, such as the postulate of ground-level lakeshore settlements with good organic preservation or a major influence of the climate on lake level fluctuations.
The work then provides an overview of important indicators for the interpretation of wetland settlements, discusses these in detail and is thus suitable as an introduction to the problem of pile dwelling construction. Finally, recommendations for future excavations and analyses are given. Five scenarios are proposed as a basis for interpretation, combining ground-level or raised construction on largely dry ground (scenarios A–B) or exceptionally, seasonally or year-round flooded ground (scenarios C–E).
Finding answers to the complex question of pile dwelling construction requires a differentiated approach that takes into account the specific circumstances of each location. The co-operation of archaeology and natural sciences is indispensable. One-dimensional explanations and simple models do not come close to doing justice to the reality of prehistoric societies.