A new look at late Neolithic plant economy from the site of Zürich-Parkhaus Opéra (Switzerland): methods, activity areas and diet

The prehistoric lake dwellings of Switzerland, Germany, and Austria have been known for more than 150 years. Of these, 111 were awarded UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status in 2011. Mainly dating from the Neolithic (including the Chalcolithic or Copper Age) and the Bronze Age, lacustrine settlements represent an early phase of sedentarisation in the northern foothills of the Alps. Despite much significant research on the material culture, settlement dynamics, economy, and ecology, the focus has hitherto almost exclusively been on the classic sites situated on the larger northern pre-Alpine lakes in the so-called Three Lakes region of western Switzerland and on the Lakes of Geneva, Zurich, and Constance. The international and interdisciplinary research project ’Beyond lake villages: studying Neolithic environmental changes and human impact on small lakes in Switzerland, Germany and Austria’ was launched in 2015 and is jointly funded by the Swiss (SNF), German (DFG), and Austrian (FWF) National Science Foundations. Research teams in prehistoric archaeology and palaeoecology from the universities of Bern, Basel, Vienna, and Innsbruck as well as the cultural heritage management authorities of the German State of Baden-Wurttemberg and the Swiss Cantons of Bern and Solothurn are concentrating their efforts on three Neolithic settlement areas on the Swiss Plateau, the German Westallgau, and the Austrian Salzkammergut. Research is focused on small, deep lakes and their immediate surroundings, with the aim of obtaining new highresolution data on the natural environment and human impact on the landscape. Our ongoing palaeoecological investigations have confirmed that small, deep lakes such as Burgaschisee and Moossee in Switzerland preserve laminated annual sediments that have enormous potential for generating high-resolution, diachronic data on vegetation, palaeoclimate, and human impact. Through the integration of wetland archaeology and palaeoecology, we hope to generate new data and models that will help to understand the variability of human impact on landscapes, especially the environmental interactions of Neolithic societies in the circum-Alpine region. The overall aim of the project is to gain a better understanding of large-scale processes of adaptation and anthropogenic impact over time.