Mondsee group

The Mondsee group was a Neolithic Austrian pile-dwelling culture spanning the period from around the 4th millennium to 3rd millennium BCE, of particular interest due to its production of the characteristic "Mondsee copper" (arsenical bronze), apparently the first in central Europe to emulate the Balkan Vinča culture.

The 1854 chance discovery of a prehistoric lake village on Switzerland's Zürichsee triggered interest in neighboring countries, and pile dwellings with huge amount of artifacts were discovered by Matthäus Much from 1864 until the 1870s in two Austrian provinces, Carinthia and Upper Austria's Salzkammergut where the lake Mondsee is situated.

Mondsee is sometimes seen as a "culture" in its own right or (usually) as a "group" within the Funnel Beaker culture/interaction sphere (TRB) of Central/Northern Europe because its pottery and stone tools show affinities.

In 2008, the German geoarchaeologist Alexander Binsteiner discovered evidence of a prehistoric landslide on the Schafberg near See am Mondsee.

[6] This landslide, whose debris today separates Mondsee and Attersee (course of the Seeache), could have wiped out the culture in an inland tsunami.