In 1922, 54 men and women, led by the local mayor and pile-dwelling researcher Georg Sulger and the Überlingen district administrator Hermann Levinger, had an idea: they wanted to establish a living open-air museum on stilts based on the scientific findings of the excavations carried out between 1871 and 1920 on Lake Constance and Lake Federsee. A huge risk, but also a magnificent vision that continues to have an impact to this day.

Numerous finds made of stone, clay and bone were to leave the silent display cases of the Lake Constance collectors and tell their story to visitors of all ages in a vivid and accessible way within a lifelike reconstruction of a pile-dwelling village. The revival of tourism on the lake would happen almost as a side effect. What is known today by the modern term ‘crowdfunding’ was already working quite well back then: shares offered for sale provided the necessary start-up funding.

And so the oldest houses in the Lake Dwelling Museum have stood for over 100 years. They have long since written their own fascinating history. Experience the early days of the Unteruhldingen lake dwellings in a special exhibition set in a historic atmosphere.

House type:

Two-room lake dwelling with wattle-and-daub walls and a thatched roof.

Reconstructed:

1922, based on the excavations carried out in Schussenried-Riedschachen by the Tübingen Institute for Prehistoric Research in 1919–1920.