In 2010 a large scale excavation of a waterlogged neolithic site “Parkhaus Opéra” took place in the centre of Zurich. On 3000 square meters the remains of a settlement with organic preservation dating to 3176-3153 BC was documented as well as the remains and pile fields of seven further settlement phases between 3234 and 2727 BC. Since 2011 a multidisciplinary project took place evaluating the deposits, the finds and the bioarchaeological remains. This project has just finished and the results of a wide range of disciplines such as archaeobotany, archaeozoology, palynology, entomology and dendrotypology give insight to the dynamics of early cultural landscape development over 250 years of human impact.
The dendroarchaeological analyses have provided the village plans and their exact dates and durations. Special attention has been paid to taphonomic processes. The degrees of preservation in archaeobiological remains and their distributions gave many indications of how different types of remains were deposited. This allows studying the finds and their distributions in the framework of single buildings.
The results of Parkhaus Opéra can be viewed together with those of sites in the vicinity such as Zurich-Mozartstrasse or the UNESCO World Heritage site of Zurich-Kleiner Hafner. Together they give insight to settlement dynamics and the organisation of social space during the 33rd and 31st century BC in Zurich and its surroundings.