Showcase 11
The great dispute – What’s the fuss?
It polarized science for more than 150 years: the dispute over the construction of pile dwellings can be traced back to 1854. Sometimes, the debate was very emotional, sometimes with national and political undertones. Were the houses standing on piles inside the lake, or were they put on stones heaps collected by people at the shores? Were the piles rather short and built so close to the shore that the houses were on dry land in the winter and only surrounded by water during the summer months? Or was the settlement on land all year round? Meanwhile, Europe-wide excavations since the 1980s have shown that pile dwellings were built in the water, on the lakeshores and on land, depending on the region.
1854 | Ferdinand Keller:
“The pile dwellings were settlements on a common platform in open water.”
1921 | Hans Reinerth
“The pile dwellings were built at the shore and were only reached by the lake when there was high water.”
1942 | Oscar Paret:
“The idea of pile dwellings in Central Europe is a romantic fallacy. The houses were built at ground level on the shore.”
1980 | Helmut Schlichtherle:
“There were ground-level pile settlements as well as settlements on the shore and on islands.”
2006 | Niels Bleicher:
“There were pile dwellings, up to 5 m above the lake floor.”
1
The pile dwelling dispute in the press | Archive APM
Sea villages” on dry land – pile dwellings that did not exist | Bodenseerundschau,
22.10.1942
Lake Constance-pile dwellings a mistake? Südkurier, June 9, 1946
A romantic mistake? | Stuttgarter Nachrichten, May 24, 1951
Reconstructed “misconstruction” | Frankfurter Abendpost, May 27, 1952
Fallacy with profit | Die Zeit, 1976
After all, did the pile dwellers exist? | FAZ, December 29, 1980
Evidence for pile dwellings found | Südkurier, November 21, 1980
Pile dwellings at Lake Constance are World Heritage | Welt, June 27, 2011
2
Ferdinand Keller, 1854
Photo: wikimedia, The History of the Canton of Zurich Volume I, Werd Verlag, Zurich 1995
3
Hans Reinerth, 1921
Photo: APM
4
Oscar Paret, 1942
Photo: H. Dürr | APM
5
Helmut Schlichtherle, 1980
Photo: G. Schöbel | APM
6
Niels Bleicher, 2006
Photo: N. Bleicher | APM