Early history of Switzerland

[3] Anatomically modern humans reached Central Europe 30,000 years ago,[4] but most of what is now Switzerland was covered by glaciers during the Last Glacial Maximum (Würm glaciation).

The Neolithic reached the Swiss plateau before 7,000 years ago (late 6th millennium BC), dominated by the Linear Pottery culture.

Remains of pile dwellings have been found in the shallow areas of many lakes, attributed to archaeological cultures such as Cortaillod, Pfyn and Horgen.

[5] The pre-Indo-European population of the Alpine region is typified by Ötzi the Iceman, an individual of the late 4th millennium BC found in the Austrian Alps (some 25 km east of the Swiss border).

The distribution of La Tène culture burials in Switzerland indicates that the Swiss plateau between Lausanne and Winterthur was relatively densely populated.

Of intermediate size were those of Bois de Châtel, Avenches (abandoned with the foundation of Aventicum as the capital of the Roman province), Jensberg (near vicus Petinesca, Mont Vully, all within a day's march from the one in Bern, the Oppidum Zürich-Lindenhof at the Lake Zurich–Limmat–Sihl triangled Lindenhof hill, and the Oppidum Uetliberg, overlooking the Sihl and Lake Zurich shore.

A female who died in about 200 B.C was found buried in a carved tree trunk during a construction project at the Kern school complex in March 2017 in Aussersihl.

A sheepskin coat, a belt chain, a fancy woolen dress, a scarf and a pendant made of glass and amber beads were also discovered with the woman.

[15][16][17] In 58 BCE, the Helvetii tried to evade migratory pressure from Germanic tribes by moving into Gaul, but were stopped and defeated at Bibracte (near modern-day Autun) by Julius Caesar's armies and then sent back.

The center of Roman occupation was at Aventicum (Avenches), other cities were founded at Arbor Felix (Arbon), Augusta Raurica (Kaiseraugst near Basel), Basilea (Basel), Curia (Chur), Genava (Geneva), Lousanna (Lausanne), Octodurum (Martigny, controlling the pass of the Great St. Bernard), Salodurum (Solothurn), Turicum (Zürich) and other places.

Burgundians settled in the Jura, the Rhône valley and the Alps south of Lake Geneva; while in the north, Alemannic settlers crossed the Rhine in 406 and slowly assimilated the Gallo-Roman population, or made it retreat into the mountains.

In the Alaman part, only isolated Christian communities continued to exist; the Germanic faith including the worship of Wuodan was prevalent.

Louis the German in 853 granted his lands in the Reuss valley to the monastery of St Felix and Regula in Zürich (modern day Fraumünster) of which his daughter Hildegard was the first abbess.

[19] According to legend this occurred after a stag bearing an illuminated crucifix between his antlers appeared to him in the marshland outside the town, at the shore of Lake Zürich.

The Fraumünster is across the river from the Grossmünster, which according to legend was founded by Charlemagne himself, as his horse fell to his knees on the spot where the martyrs Felix and Regula were buried.

When the land was granted to the monastery, it was exempt from all feudal lords except the king and later the Holy Roman Emperor (a condition known as Imperial immediacy; in German Reichsfreiheit or Reichsunmittelbarkeit).

In the 10th century, the rule of the Carolingians waned: Magyars destroyed Basel in 917 and St. Gallen in 926, and Saracens ravaged the Valais after 920 and sacked the monastery of St. Maurice in 939.

When the house of Zähringen died out in 1218 the office of Vogt over the Abbey of St Felix and Regula in Zürich was granted to the Habsburgs, however it was quickly revoked.

While some of the "Forest Communities" (Waldstätten, i.e. Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden) were reichsfrei the Habsburgs still claimed authority over some villages and much of the surrounding land.

While Schwyz was reichsfrei in 1240, the castle of Neu Habsburg was built in 1244 to help control Lake Lucerne and restrict the neighboring Forest Communities.

With the opening of the Gotthard Pass in the 13th century, the territory of Central Switzerland, primarily the valley of Uri, had gained great strategical importance and was granted Reichsfreiheit by the Hohenstaufen emperors.

This became the nucleus of the Swiss Confederacy, which during the 1330s to 1350s grew to incorporate its core of "eight cantons" (Acht Orte) The 14th century in the territory of modern Switzerland was a time of transition from the old feudal order administrated by regional families of lower nobility (such as the houses of Bubenberg, Eschenbach, Falkenstein, Freiburg, Frohburg, Grünenberg, Greifenstein, Homberg, Kyburg, Landenberg, Rapperswil, Toggenburg, Zähringen etc.)

and the development of the great powers of the late medieval period, primarily the first stage of the meteoric rise of the House of Habsburg, which was confronted with rivals in Burgundy and Savoy.

As elsewhere in Europe, Switzerland suffered a crisis in the middle of the century, triggered by the Black Death followed by social upheaval and moral panics, often directed against the Jews as in the Basel massacre of 1349.

The balance of power remained precarious during the 1350s to 1380s, with Habsburg trying to regain lost influence; Albrecht II besieged Zürich unsuccessfully, but imposed an unfavourable peace on the city in the treaty of Regensburg.

From this time, the upper Valais was mostly independent de facto, preparing the Republican structure that would emerge in the early modern period.