Keywords: Untersee – Upper Rhine - Lake Constance – Neolithic – Bronze Age - lake shore settlements – pile dwellings –– UNESCO world heritage - Öhningen - Orkopf
Aerial Picture courtesy O. Braasch 2008
Assigned by the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Dienststelle Hemmenhofen, we executed monitoring works outlet of Lake Constance to the Upper Rhine. In the area for almost a decade underwater archaeological rescue excavations had been carried out.
The “Stiegener Enge” forms a funnel-like hydrological bottleneck situation with prehistoric sites at the Thurgau and the Baden-Württemberg shores as well. When erosion processes brought large Neolithic and Bronze Age pile fields to the surface the Amt für Archäologie des Kantons Thurgau and the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden Württemberg, Dienststelle Hemmenhofen started a cooperation project, aiming to rescue the site “Orkopf” from final destruction. After completion of these works in 2015 and small-scale sampling works in 2017 and 2018 we now started a regular monitoring, along with other nearby sites on the Baden-Württemberg shore.
At some places occur dark sediment patches at the surface. They contain charcoal. Sampling of stakes at the Orkopf site 2018. The samples proved to date to the 6th millenium BC
