Wooden stakes from prehistoric pile dwellings built on what was then the shore of Lake Lucerne were discovered last year during construction of water pipeline. They date to 1000 B.C., proving that the human settlement of Lucerne is 2,000 years older than previously believed.

The city of Lucerne as we know it today was founded 800 years ago and while there have been a few Neolithic and Roman archaeological materials found here and there, no evidence of a previous settlement has ever been discovered until now. This is largely due to the rise in the level of the lake since the 15th century. The outflow of water began to be choked by storm debris at that time, and the lake rose even higher when weirs were installed to power mills in the 19th century. The much deeper lake effectively put the remains of its prehistoric settlement out of reach as well as making it seem an unsuitable candidate for a pile dwelling settlements.

Because the water levels in the lake were 16 feet lower before the 15th century, archaeologists have looked for evidence of early pile dwellings on the lake bed as a long shallow shore would have been an ideal settlement area. Nothing was found before now because the thick layer of mud covering the lake bed obscured everything.

Only heavy construction work can penetrate it, so when the lake pipeline was laid, underwater archaeologists took the opportunity to follow in its wake looking for evidence of human occupation in the lakebed exposed by the pipeline trench. They hit paydirt (paymud?), discovering about 30 wood piles and five pottery fragments. Radiocarbon testing dated them to the Late Bronze Age.

The timing of the find coincides with the tenth anniversary of “Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps” being granted UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Since 2011, 111 pile dwelling sites in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Switzerland have been added to the list, and almost half of the total — 56 sites — are in Switzerland.