INTRODUCTION

One hundred and fifty years ago, as a result of a dry and harsh winter, the water level of Lake Zurich decreased considerably, exposing ancient remains of lacustrine villages. Of course, traces of ancient dwellings on lakes and marshes had been known well before 1854, but, for some reason, they had never been officially reported to the authorities. It took the efforts of a school teacher, Johannes Aeppli, to trigger a phenomenon that would have enormous implications on wetland archaeological studies in general. Full of enthusiasm about the discoveries, Mr Aeppli promptly contacted the Antiquarian Association in Zurich and the Ober-Meilen prehistoric lacustrine dwelling was soon examined by the Swiss naturalist Ferdinand Keller, who by the end of 1854 published a detailed site report: Die keltischen Pfahlbauten in den Schweizerseen (Keller 1854). It was this publication that initiated the widespread interest in the lake-dwellings. The quest for lake-settlements rapidly spread around the entire Alpine region (Chapters 1-6 this volume), central Europe and even across the English Channel (Coles Chapter 7 this volume). By the turn of the century, hundreds of sites had been discovered and a number of scholars had already begun to study them.