Summary:
In 1854, Ferdinand Keller (1800-1881) discovered the vestiges of a prehistoric settlement at Obermeilen, on the temporarily dried shores of Lake Zurich. Interpreting these vestiges as the remnants of an ancient village built on a platform, above the waters of the lake, Ferdinand Keller (then President of the local Society of Antiquaries) soon attracted the attention of all his antiquarian colleagues, in Switzerland as well as in the neighbouring countries, who successfully began to search for similar settlements on all the lakes and moors around the Alps.
This discovery played a significant part in the development of prehistoric research. Up to this date, the antiquarians had focused on funerary monuments and on allegedly religious or military sites. From now on, thanks to the ever growing body of "lake-dwellings", they could finally explore the daily life and the living conditions of their Neolithic and protohistoric "ancestors". Above all, the exceptional conservation of organic remains attracted many specialists of the natural sciences to the field of archaeology. And the cooperation of antiquarians and naturalists was to have far-reaching consequences in the epistemological shaping of the future discipline of prehistory, between historical and natural sciences.
The invention of the "lake-dwelling civilization" also had somemportance on the political and ideological level. The romantic reconstruction of the lake-dwellings actually served its wide-scale popularization. It inspired artists throughout Switzerland, who idealized the "Golden Age" of these prehistoric settlements. Interpreted as the essence of future Switzerland, this original "lake-dwelling civilization" was to play a central role in the construction of the identity of the Swiss nation, in the new Swiss State, which had been founded a few years before, in 1848.
In order to celebrate the 150th anniversary of this historic discovery, the Swiss National Museum (Zurich) is organizing a special exhibition dedicated to the cultural characteristics of these prehistoric lakeshore settlements, as well as to the historical and social reception of the so-called "lake-dwelling civilization". This exhibition, which is organized in cooperation with the University of Zurich and the Archaeological Service of the City of Zurich, will last from February 27th until June 13th 2004. It will lead to the publication of a bilingual (German and French) catalogue, as well as to several other books.
