Showcase 7
Germanic people, celts, romans – Who were the pile dwellers?
The question of the origin of the pile dwellers has occupied research from the very beginning. Historical sources allowed for different interpretations. Helvetii, Celts, Gauls, Germanic people, Romans, even Phoenicians were considered. Poets and artists took up these interpretations and processed them in theater performances, pageants, novels, poems and oil paintings. In the 19th century, imaginative illustrations were created that show the people dwellers either as Celts – with red and blonde hair, or as Germanic people – with eye-catching topknots. In order to document the extensive trade relations to the Mediterranean, they were sometimes portrayed as Phoenician traders. Germans, Swiss, French, Italians, Austrians and proto-Europeans from the east, south and west – apparently all were up for discussion as the creators of the pile dwellings.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the assumption became widespread that the pile dwellers came from distant Asia and, as Indo-Europeans, had reached Lake Constance via the Danube countries and northern Italy and up the Rhone via Switzerland. . In contrast, the idea of immigration from the north from a “original homeland of the Germanic people” remained tenacious. The National Socialists misused this thesis for ideological purposes and fueled a Germanic myth that suddenly ended in Germany in 1945. In Switzerland, research did not assume immigration, but rather a local development from hunter to farmer. All in all, the uncertainty surrounding the question of origin led to a lack of images and explanations from the 1950s onwards.
Today, detailed examinations of the finds, absolute dating and genetic analyzes confirm diverse cultural influences from different directions. For example from the east along the Danube, over the main Alpine ridge from the south and also from the west. The oldest data so far comes from Greece and Macedonia. This question will only be satisfactorily answered after further investigations.
Hunter’s homecoming in pile dwelling times
Illustration: Johann Gottlieb Hegi, 1865
Photo: Urban Archeology Zurich (CH)
“…and in fact the first warriors without loincloths and helmets protected their shoulders and heads with the skins of wild animals…“
Philipp Clüvers (1616)
Pile dwellers at the historic parade on the occasion of the Neuchâtel Cantonal Shooting Festival in 1882
Photo: Latènium (CH)
“…the people of that time probably only knew how to tan, so they dressed in nothing but fur and leather…”
Friedrich Theodor von Vischer (1879)
Pile dwelling settlement of Konstanz-Rauenegg
Painting: Anton Seder, 1871
Photo: RGM
“…the hair (of the Gauls) is not only naturally blonde, but they also enhance this peculiar colour through artificial treatment.”
Diodorus Siculus (around 40 AD)
The pile dweller
Painting: Albert Anker, 1886
Photo: SIK (CH)
“… a characteristic of this people is the custom of wearing their hair diagonally and tying it up in a topknot. This is how the Suebi differ from the other Germanic peoples …”
Publius Cornelius Tacitus (98 AD)
Romantic pile dwellings
Painting by Carl von Haeberlin, 1887
Photo: APM
“… The women of the Gauls are not only not inferior to the men in terms of body size, but are also a match for them in terms of strength.”
Diodorus Siculus (around 50 AD)
Historic legends of Switzerland, the pile dwellings
Liebig collective picture, 1939
Photo: APM
“The tribes of Germania are a unique, unmixed people with incomparable characteristics. That’s why everyone’s external appearance is the same: everyone has defiant blue eyes, reddish-blonde hair and gigantic bodies, which of course are only good for attack.“
Publius Cornelius Tacitus (98 AD)
Pile dwellings
Liebig collective picture, 1939
Photo: APM
“… The parts beyond the Rhenus, immediately after the land of the Celts… are occupied by the Germanic people, who differ only slightly from the Celtic tribe, in that they are wilder and larger and have yellower hair …“
Strabo (7 BC)
Germanic woman and man of the Bronze Age around 1500 BC
Figurines: Heinrich Keiling, after H. Hahne, Halle around 1927/28
Photo: LFA Halle
“It could therefore appear as if ancient fur clothing gave way completely to woven clothing in the Bronze Age.”
Friedrich Rausch (1928)
Living history in the pile dwellings, 1934
Photo: Udry | APM
“Naked people of the South Seas in fake Stone Age costumes are … unusable. … I will now send costume figures with nice Bronze Age clothing.”
Hans Reinerth to Georg Sulger (1932)
Decapitated Germanic figurines made of gypsum, after 1945
Figurines by Heinrich Keiling after H. Hahne in the archive of the Pile Dwelling Museum
Photo: G. Schöbel | APM
“The racial types are ideal images that could not have existed in this form before.”
Oscar Paret (1947)
Pile dwellers
Blackboard sketch for school teaching
Illustration: H. Pfenninger, 1967
Photo: P. Raimann
“Because we don’t want to show a false life portrait, we show … the architecture or the people only from a distance.”
Andrea Hagendorn and Marco Bernasconi (2022)
Pile dwellers
School mural around 1960
Illustration: P. Eichenberger
Photo: Frank Müller | APM
“Light skin is the result of migration: The first farmers … not only brought agriculture and livestock with them, but also a weaker skin pigmentation.”
Johannes Krause (2021)
Morning after the storm (neolithic lakeside settlement)
Illustration: atelier bunterhund, 2014
Photo: atelier bunterhund
“The whole appearance of the neolithic people hardly differs from that of the Europeans of the 20th century!”
Alex R. Furger (1983)