lake dwelling

Prehistoric habitation built on piles driven into the bottom of a lake or at the edge of a lake or river. Such villages are found throughout Europe, in West Africa, South America, Borneo, and New Guinea.

Objects recovered from lake dwellings are often unusually well preserved by the mud or peat in which they are buried. Wooden items, wickerwork, woven fabrics, fruit, and pollen grains have been retrieved.

Neolithic (New Stone Age) and late Bronze Age sites have been discovered in the Alps and the Jura Mountains in Europe. Lake dwellings of the Neolithic period in the western Alps have undergone extensive study. At Robenhausen on Lake Pfäffikon near Zürich, Switzerland, evidence has been found of fishing, wild ox and deer hunting, the domestication of animals, and cultivation of wheat and flax. Tools and weapons were of stone, wood, and bone; vessels of wood and pottery. There was no naturalistic art, but symbols possibly of a spiritual or religious nature exist.