Living by the Lake. Domestic Architecture in the Alpine Foreland

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the Neolithic buildings of the western Alpine foreland. As part of a wider shift in practices of inhabitation in Europe at this time, these dwellings are extremely impermanent and short-lived, allowing for considerable residential flexibility. Relations between household members and between households had to be maintained in new ways, no longer centred on structural permanence, but instead foregrounding practices of re-building, production and daily life. There is also evidence for some special-purpose structures. Together, these new ways of dwelling have implications for the adoption of sedentism and for the nature of cultural contacts in this area, which are also briefly discussed.