Monastic Island of Reicheneau - UNESCO: World Heritage

economy of the settlements is characterized
by the growing of wheat originating from the
western Mediterranean, by the domestication
of animals (cattle) and significant hunting
and gathering activities. The subsequent
Neolithic cultures intensified the
domestication of animals and modified the
range of cultivated plants. Yet all of them are
characterised by a “crisis- proof” mixed
economy, consisting of agriculture, animal
husbandry, and hunting and gathering.
Occupation sites were changed often, and
influence on the natural landscape was
discontinuous.
The Hornstaad Group provided the basis for
the evolution of the Pfyn Culture after 3860
BC. This culture is well represented in the
Lake Constance region by numerous
occupation sites along the lake shore and,
expanding to the Zug Lake and Upper
Swabia, may also have existed on the island
of Reichenau. The finding of a so-called flat
hammer-axe can be seen as evidence for this.
It is remarkable that traces of the Pfyn and the
Horgen Culture, spanning a millennium and
leaving numerous dwellings along the
shorelines of Lake Constance, are hardly to
be found on the island of Reichenau. It is
only the church excavation at Niederzell that
once again provides evidence for an
occupation on dry land of the Early or
Middle Horgen Culture around 3300 - 2900
BC. The development of the Horgen Culture
at Lake Constance was essentially influenced
by the Badener Culture from south-eastern
Europe. Important technological, economic
and social innovations, the invention of the
wheel and the wagon, the use of the oxdrawn
plough, presumably linked to the
invention of the wagon, and the development
of differentiated settlement patterns with
central and secondary dwellings fall into this
period. The range of the Horgen Culture
History of Human Occupation of the Island Add. 2
extends from Western Switzerland to
Württemberg and into the Central Alps. For
the first time the ranges of western European
and central and eastern European cultural
traditions intersected. Western Lake
Constance and the island of Reichenau
represent the geographical centre of the
Horgen culture, so one may safely assume
that the island was fully integrated in these
activities.
With the Late Neolithic Beaker Cultures
(Corded Ware, Bell Beaker), starting in 2700
BC, evidence for dwellings at Lake
Constance declines in general. The island
may well have been repeatedly depopulated.
The Reichenau is also lacking clear traces of
settlement in the Early Bronze Age from
2200 BC onward, though some pottery finds
from the church excavations at Mittelzell and
Niederzell suggest general settlement on dry
soils in the Bronze Age. A sherd from
Mittelzell can be ascribed to the Barrow
Culture. Recent research in the Hegau region
may show a dense settlement pattern for this
particular horizon of time while
“Pfahlbauten” (pile structures) at Lake
Constance were given up in the Middle
Bronze Age. The sherds found on the island
of Reichenau, few but significant as they are,
in combination with further findings in nonwaterlogged
soils of the period in Bodman,
Immenstaad and Kreuzlingen demonstrate
settlement along the shore of Lake
Constance in higher areas of 400 - 405 m
above sea level. At this period, large
accumulations of colluvia deposited at the
western end of Lake Constance point to an
intensification of agriculture. Pollen
stratigraphy demonstrates an increasing and
lasting development of the landscape through
the creation of permanent fields and pasture
lands.
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