Stone hill in Lake Constance

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The row of stone hills in Lake Constance is a recently newly discovered prehistoric group of artificial embankments in front of the Thurgau shores in Lake Constance .

The five-kilometer long row of flat hills made of field stones extends in the shallow water zone from Bottighofen to Romanshorn . The 170 artificial soil forms are located around 200 meters from the current shore at a depth of up to four meters below the current lake surface on the natural fine sediment layers. The stone piles have a diameter of around 20 to 30 meters. The total volume of the stones carried to the lake, which were probably deposited on the land in the vicinity of the lake during the Ice Age, is estimated to be around 85,000 cubic meters, which could correspond to a weight of around 110,000 tons.

The objects were discovered in 2015 during a precise lake survey by the State Institute for the Environment, Measurements and Nature Conservation Baden-Württemberg, Langenargen (LUBW) . After initial investigations since 2015, the Office for Archeology of the Canton of Thurgau and the Geological Institute of the University of Bern investigated some locations near Uttwil with underwater excavations, ground penetrating radar measurements , core drilling in the sediments and radiocarbon dating .

The research results so far show that the facility, which was in any case built with considerable effort, was built in the Bronze Age or at most in the late Neolithic . Further studies are required in order to obtain more detailed information about the purpose and cultural classification of the range of hills, which also has wooden stakes driven into the lake floor. The thesis is discussed that the hills were built in an era with a significantly lower water level in Lake Constance, roughly in the former bank zone.

Web links