In 2011 the “Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps” became UNECSO World Heritage sites in six countries of middle Europe. Out of 1000 known lake-settlements around the Alps 111 were awarded World Heritage status and protection. Five of the 111 lake-settlements are archaeological sites in Austria. The selection of the underwater sites represents a spectrum of important lake-settlements from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. In Austria this UNESCO World Heritage status caused a whole new approach to a research topic in a “deep slumber” in Austria and awakened different institutions to pay a close attention to the fantastic research potential of wetland archaeology.
The government and project founded association “Kuratorium Pfahlbauten”, as the national management of the UNESCO World Heritage in Austria, is a trail-blazer for new projects and new concepts for archaeology projects and aims to link students, scientists and citizen scientists to establish a whole range of new scientific projects.
A new research initiative is necessary not only to learn more about each site and for a better heritage protection, but also to combine our knowledge about the prehistoric life around the Alps in an interdisciplinary approach. Furthermore, it is our goal to accomplish new research data and information about lake settlements in Upper Austria in preparations for a large provincial exhibition in 2020 and other awareness raising projects. Research projects like “Beyond lake villages”, “Doing World Heritage” and “Zeitensprung” are first products of the initiation of the topic through the UNESCO-World Heritage in Austria.
On the occasion of the 30th Anniversary meeting for the Wetland Archaeology Research Project we would like to review the last five years of managing a wetland World Heritage in Austria.
We hope this paper will give an overview of the research situation in the wetland archaeology in Austria and provide you with new input on managing archaeological wetland sites.