Wauwilermoos pile dwelling settlement (Egolzwil 3)

[1][2] The site is located on the former Wauwilersee lakeshore in the municipalities of Egolzwil, Wauwil and Schötz in the Canton of Luzern in Switzerland.

[3] Around 20000 BC a branch of the Reuss glacier formed a valley whose deepest point was approximately 57 metres (187 ft) below the present surface.

To 17000 BC the area was finally free of ice, and soon first pioneer plants settled, such as dwarf birch and mountain avens on, typically for a post-glacial tundra landscape.

The village was inhabited only for six years, and thus shows a short but precisely defined episode within the Neolithic period.

The remains of the settlements are an important site for palaeo-ecological studies on the Wauwil bog (German: Wauwilermoos).

A research based on scientific criteria began in the early 1930s with excavations in Schötz and at the Neolithic site Egolzwil E2 under the direction of Hans Reinerth.

These artifacts, among them many burins and typical back and wide lace tee scratches, are attributed to the Fürstein culture.

Unique are sickles with a straight wooden handle and diagonally sweeping knives made of flint that was fixed with birch tar, axe shafts, clubs, sticks, furrows, and a textile jewelry container with shells from the Mediterranean area.

[7] As well as being part of the 56 Swiss sites of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, the settlement is also listed in the Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance as a Class A object of national importance.