Underwater Archaeology

For over one hundred and fifty years inquiries and research projects, some more beneficial than others, have been made into the preserved remains of lake dwellings found across Europe. The unique discoveries of pile dwellings in Lake Zurich in 1854 ignited the frantic search for more prehistoric sites, attracting interest from antiquarians seeking to better our understanding of the past (Menotti, 2004). Hundreds of new sites were found and the works of early archaeologists like Munro and Keller provided a written record for the future. Ethnographic sources from the latter half of the 19th Century shaped the early interpretations, creating a romantic picture of Neolithic societies that inhabited these lacustrine dwellings (Fig. 1). It would be over fifty years before these theories could be contested, with the development of scientific and archaeological techniques that allowed for professional research to be conducted. Diving opened up the possibility of surveying and excavating underwater sites without having to remove the water and its preservative characteristics. Mainstream archaeologists still find it difficult to accept that archaeological work can be successfully performed underwater, but the methods and techniques used to survey and excavate the lake dwellings of Scotland have proved the contrary.

Although evidence for lake dwelling societies in Europe has been known as far back as Herodotus (Dixon 2004, 18), no systematic investigation into these sites occurred before the second half of the 19th Century. The winter of 1853-4 was harsh enough to leave the lake levels of Lake Zurich in Switzerland unusually low. Inhabitants trying to reclaim the land discovered wooden piles along with other prehistoric artefacts, incl...

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