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The pile dwellings around the Alps consist of 111 small sites with the remains of stilt house settlements from around 5000 to 500 B.C.
The UNESCO World Heritage List includes over a thousand properties. They have outstanding universal value and are all part of the world’s cultural and natural heritage.
Official facts
- Official title: Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps
- Countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland
- Date of Inscription: 2011
- Category: Cultural
UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre’s short description of site no. 1363:
This serial property of 111 small individual sites encompasses the remains of prehistoric pile-dwelling (or stilt house) settlements in and around the Alps built from around 5000 to 500 B.C. on the edges of lakes, rivers or wetlands. Excavations, only conducted in some of the sites, have yielded evidence that provides insight into life in prehistoric times during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Alpine Europe and the way communities interacted with their environment. Fifty-six of the sites are located in Switzerland. The settlements are a unique group of exceptionally well-preserved and culturally rich archaeological sites, which constitute one of the most important sources for the study of early agrarian societies in the region.
A bit more about the pile dwellings
If you build your house with an organic material like wood, it will not last for ever. However, if you live near a lake, river or a wetland and build your house on stilts, you may live to see that your stilt house collapses and disappear under water. Water is the key to conservation. This is what happened to this kind of prehistoric settlements, the pile dwellings. Recent archaeological studies have found a number of such sites in and around the Alps, in Central Europe.
The findings put together have presented us with an understanding of how some of the early agrarian societies in Europe developed. We know what they farmed, which animals they domesticated, and how they developed metallurgy as far back as 7000 years ago. As UNESCO put it, this “coincides with one of the most important phases of recent human history: the dawn of modern societies”.
These societies where not a comprehensive civilisation but rather some 30 different social groups scattered around the mountain range.
This period in the history of mankind carries the name prehistoric. It simply means that there are no written records of what happened. Instead historians have to rely on archaeological findings and interpret them. By combining every little bit of evidence they have been able to discover trade routes for flint, shells, gold, amber, and pottery across the Alps and within the plains. The oldest textiles in Europe dating to 3000 BC are part of the discoveries.
Excavations have even revealed methods of transportation, in the form of dugout canoes and wooden wheels. UNESCO take a notice of the latter with the regard to the discovery of wheels with axles for two wheeled carts dating from around 3400 BC. These are some of the earliest preserved of its kind in the world.
My visit
The wooden wheels with axles take us to Slovenia where the featured image of this article is from. It shows the world’s oldest wooden wheel with axle.
Slovenia is a country southeast of the Alps with two of the 111 sites in this combined World Heritage Site. Ljubljana, the capital, has two museums with objects and informative exhibitions about the pile dwellings of Slovenia.
In 2024, I also sought out the pile dwelling sites on one of my road trips out of Ljubljana. They are quite close to the city and are actually situated on the route between two other World Heritage Sites. Find them on the map at the end of this article.
Museum collections in Ljubljana
There are as far as I know two museums in Ljubljana that pay attention to this heritage. The best is the City Museum of Ljubljana which has informative maps and poster descriptions about it. The other is the National Museum of Slovenia which has a number of objects primarily in terms of pottery. The National Museum does not offer good enough explanations about them or their significance, in my opinion. More than 10,000 objects have been found in Slovenia.
The famous wheel with axle, 5,200 years old, with a radius of 70 cm, is on display at the City Museum. There is also, by the way, a copy of it at the Castle Museum which you will undoubtedly visit while in Ljubljana. I found that the museum visits in Ljubljana provided a good introduction to what life was like in the the prehistoric pile dwellings in Slovenia, as well as around the Alps.
A visit to pile dwelling sites south of Ljubljana
Next, I wanted to go find them myself. I had read up on what others thought about this World Heritage Site. Basically, it was that very few of the pile dwellings around the Alps are visible today. It looks like a couple of Italian sights are the best. Well, I was in Slovenia and was set on finding the two sites in this country.
Ljubljana sits with hills to the east and west, and marshes north and south. That is why the Romans made this gateway into an important town many years after the pile dwelling life came to an end. Before that the marshes were more like a lake, and today it is a fertile farming land.
There is a map at the bottom of this page. Be aware that the drive into the region of Ig is easy enough if you have a car. Still, finding any sign of a pile dwelling settlement is impossible. They do not exist.
A disappointment
You can find some information on Slovenian websites like this one, and a more thorough one also. Upon returning home I came across another website describing how easy it is, and how fun it would be, to visit a reconstructed site. They encourage you to visit what is called the Morostig House inside the village or town of Ig. From there you walk a 2 km marked path to the site. Parking nearby the reconstructed pile dwelling is not possible. I drove past this site on two sides but there were no signposts to it. Sure, I missed this but the reconstructed site looks really appealing. So I would encourage others to go visit it.
I believe it is the same place I have marked on the map, but you never know. I was thoroughly disappointed with my visit. The case is that I followed my map (pinpointing UNESCO’s descriptions) onto a gravel road, or more like dirt road for the local farmers. I found a place to stop with a signpost of some sorts, marked by a camera on Google Maps. However, there were no road signs showing where to look or where to stop anywhere near Ig. This is a stark contrast to what the authorities have done in and around another World Heritage Site in Slovenia, the mercury mine in Idrija.
Nevertheless, I was there and ticked it off my bucket list as a genuine visit. I took some images from this area of pile dwellings:
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In the map below, my road trip into this area is shown by a red colour. Zoom in on the UNESCO signs south of Ljubljana, and click the markers for some more information. I have tried to place the markers as accurate as possible.
