Castello del Buonconsiglio monumenti e collezioni provinciali

Signs of the past

A host of archaeological remains have been unearthed in the Giudicarie Esteriori Valley. The discoveries made in Fiavé, Vigo Lomaso and Stenico shed new light on the settlements built in the area between Prehistory and the Roman Era.
FIAVÉ: the ruins of pile dwellings, or palafitte, built in the Second Millennium BC on the banks of what was once Lake Carera have been essential in reconstructing daily life during the Bronze Age in the southern Alps and beyond.
STENICO: the burial mounds in the Calferi area afford a fascinating insight into the cult of death in the Mid Bronze Age (14th century BC). From the Late Bronze Age (11th-10th century BC) until the end of the Iron Age (1st century BC), the area was used for religious ceremonies, which were celebrated by burning sacrifices and offering votive objects, some often broken deliberately.
VIGO LOMASO: traces of terrace settlements dating back to the First Millennium BC and to Roman times suggest that the area was inhabited even after the pile dwellings had been abandoned.

The Fiavé peat bog: a casket of gems in the mountains

The peat bog (known locally as el Palù) lies in the basin of a moraine-dammed lake that formed about 20,000 years ago at the time of the last great Würm glaciation. About one hundred years ago, the lake disappeared under the creeping peat, turning it into a bog.
In 1853 archaeological remains, piles and pottery were uncovered during digging work to extract the peat for fuel. Similar discoveries made on lakes in Switzerland and northern Italy enabled archaeologists to identify the piles as part of dwellings.
Since 1969 systematic research has helped to reconstruct the daily life and history of the settlements in Fiavé and their fundamental role in Prehistoric times, both in the Alps and across Europe.

Life on the water: Fiavé and the “pile dwelling issue”

Between 1969 and 1976 research in the Fiavé peat bog by Italian archaeologist Renato Perini largely contributed to solving the age-old debate as to whether huts had actually been erected over water. The debate was sparked in 1854 by the theory of Swiss archaeologist Ferdinand Keller, who postulated that villages of huts had been built on piles submerged in the lake.
Evidence that pile dwellings existed in Fiavé between about 2000—1400 BC is provided by the piles in Excavation Area 2, which supported raised platforms, and by the remains of wooden flooring that had collapsed from above. Further evidence is given by the characteristics of the sediment and by the layers of pottery, wooden artefacts, debris, and organic remains preserved in the mud. The piles were made from whole or sectioned trunks of coniferous trees that had been stripped of their bark. They stood about four metres from the lakebed and had been erected in their hundreds. It is believed that the piles were used in such high density to prevent the village framework from subsiding or slipping, as well as to reinforce the sides of the huts. It is also thought the piles improved the grip of the clayey lakebed. Analysis of pollen and excrement has shown that the huts were used to shelter goats and sheep fed on hay or foliage.

“Skilled axe users” designed the village in Fiavé

A village of terraced dwellings dating back to the Mid Bronze Age (about 1400—1350 BC) has been unearthed in Fiavé in Excavation Zone 1. Part of the settlement comprised huts built at the tip of a peninsula with floors resting on dry land. Other huts had been built on the lakeshore and lakebed on raised platforms supported by piles. Transverse beams had been fitted to these piles to secure an elaborate beam framework to the lakebed so that the weight of the huts could be evenly distributed. This complex framework, which was surrounded by a palisade, suggests that the village was a single unit and that a leading member of the community had design skills.
Levels of ash and carbon, burnt floorboards and beams, as well as warped pottery, reveal that the village had been destroyed by a fierce blaze. As there were no traces of fire on the foundations and the palisade, this suggests that water was present when the fire broke out.

The cult of death and burnt sacrifices in the Calferi area, Stenico

In the early decades of the 20th century, building- and road-work brought to light archaeological finds in the south-eastern outskirts of Stenico, in the Calferi area, just a short distance from Stenico Castle. Archaeological digs between 1978 and 1981 revealed that the area had been used to celebrate funeral rites during the Mid Bronze Age (14th century BC) and the High Middle Ages. It was also discovered that cults used the area to burn sacrifices from the Late Bronze Age until the area fell under the Roman Empire (11th—1st century BC).

The skull cult in Stenico’s “city of the dead”

Archaeological digs along the slopes of the Calferi area, Stenico, unearthed a burial mound of stone and gravel dating back to the Mid Bronze Age (14th century BC). Twenty-seven bodies were buried in the mound: 13 adults (10 males and 3 females) and 14 children. The deceased were probably members of the same family. The bodies had been laid in 6 rectangular tombs in a north-south position, and an arrangement of stones had been placed around the tombs.
Almost all of the adult skulls were missing, particularly in female tomb number one (see reconstruction), revealing a sort of “skull cult”. This ritual removal of the skull, which had great symbolic meaning, may imply an “ancestor cult”. The funeral rite required offerings to be laid next to the tomb; these offerings included the same type of pottery also found in the pile dwellings in Fiavé, as well as the bones of bears, wolves, deer and boars. The recipients used in the ceremony were probably for libation and had been deliberately smashed.

One thousand years of devotion: Stenico’s burnt sacrifices

The discovery of layers of ash, sooty soil, plus burnt bones and offerings, reveals that the area around the burial mounds was a sacred place, a hub of ritual practices that spanned a millennium: from the Late Bronze Age to Roman domination (11th—1st century BC). According to a custom that was widespread in the central-eastern Alps, the cult burnt a variety of sacrificial offerings, including animals, plants, pottery and metal artefacts. It is also believed that libation took place and that the ceremonial jugs and cups were then smashed and scattered. The vast quantities of pottery fragments discovered there had been carved with letters from the alphabet of the Rhaetians, a pre-Roman people. This alphabet was a variation of the north Etruscan alphabet.
Archaeologists also found a building dating back to the 1st century BC, when the Romans first colonised the area. The building was believed to have been used for cult worship because it contained recipients such as amphorae, goblets and cups associated with a symposium. In the High Middle Ages, the remains of a boy and a woman were discovered on the same site. The bodies had been buried in the soil with no burial objects.

Vigo Lomaso: settlements between the first millennium bc and roman times

Vigo Lomaso sits on the south-eastern side of the Giudicarie Esteriori Valley, at the entrance to the Lomasona Valley, along the route that leads to Lake Garda.
The archaeological area, which is near to the parish church of Pieve di S. Lorenzo, stretches to the foot of the slopes that lead to Castel Spine.
Traces of ancient human settlements came to light in 1976 after a landslide unearthed fragments of pottery and the remains of walls. Studies have revealed that during the First Millennium BC, between the First and Second Iron Age, dwellings were built between artificial terraces and protected upstream by dry-stone walls. The remains of more recent pottery cups and jugs have also been found. These items are more characteristic of the Rhaetians, a pre-Roman people that inhabited the central-eastern Alps. Upstream of the oldest terraces are the remains of mortar walls, evidence that a large Roman building once stood there.