Pile Dwellings in the Circum-Baltic Area

Abstract

The phenomenon of northern pile dwellings has been found in different geographical zones and landscapes of the Circum-Baltic region: in sea landscapes and on the shores of inland lakes and rivers. Inland sites were established in specific lacustrine landscapes, appearing within former post-glacial basins. The pile dwellings revealed here are characterized by different types of wooden buildings, including structures with raised floors. They are dated to the 4th millennium BC to 4th century BC in Central Europe and the Baltics, and to the end of the 4th to end of the 3rd millennium BC – in NW Russia and Belarus. They appeared in major cases independently and followed different cultural trajectories. The article presents an overview of a number of sites which can be attributed to pile dwelling settlements distributed in the Circum-Baltic area. It discusses particular features of their construction, traits of material culture, and site location patterns.

Dendroarchaeology in Europe

“…Other forms of preservation are associated with the deposition in a biotoxic environment, for example, in the famous Hallstatt saltmines, Austria (Herzig, 2009;Reschreiter and Kowarik, 2019;Haneca and Deforce, 2020;Grabner et al, 2021), and the chemical alterations of the wood tissue through carbonization and mineralization (Chabal, 1997;Tegel et al, 2016a;Haneca and Deforce, 2020). However, the most important form of wood preservation is provided by waterlogged conditions, frequently discovered at archaeological excavations, for example in water wells and other features below the groundwater level (Kretschmer et al, 2016;Croutsch et al, 2020), from pile dwellings in lakes and bogs (e.g., Bleicher, 2009;Tarrús, 2018;Benguerel et al, 2020;Hafner et al, 2021;Pranckënaitë et al, 2021), shipwrecks at the bottom of seas, lakes and rivers (e.g., Domínguez-Delmás et al, 2013;Nayling and Susperregi, 2014;Daly et al, 2021) and paleo-channels (Pilcher et al, 1977;Becker et al, 1985;Leuschner and Sass-Klaassen, 2003;Edvardsson et al, 2016b; Figure 1). Waterlogged wooden objects can be preserved for millennia (Thieme, 1997;Tegel et al, 2012;Rybníček et al, 2020).…”

Wood Identification: A Tool for Preservation of Indigenous Architecture of Traditional Houses in Ifugao, Philippines

“…Pile Dwellings and the Ifugao Traditional House Pile dwellings are prehistoric stilt houses that have been described in various places worldwide. UNESCO has recognized 111 sites with remains of these Neolithic pile dwellings located around the Alps of Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, and Switzerland (Ruttkay et al 2004;ICG Palafittes 2009;Çufar 2010;Hafner et al 2014;Billamboz 2014) Russia (Dolukhanov & Miklyayev 1986;Mazurkevich et al 2010) and Belarus (Pranckenaite et al 2021). These pile dwellings were located on rivers, lakes, and wetland shores and were important sites for agricultural communities from 5000 to 500 BC (UNESCO 2022).…”