Scaling Archaeology? A glimpse on prehistoric settlement research in Neolithic alpine lake shore villages

Within the scope of the project \Beyond lake villages: Studying Neolithic environmental changes and human impact at small lakes in Switzerland, Germany and Austria" special attention is drawn to the modeling of the Western Swiss Neolithic (ca. 4500-2200 cal. B.C.) population density, land use and land cover under consideration of changing technological, socioeconomic and climatic infuences. The well preserved waterlogged lake shore settlements of the alpine foreland provide us with an extraordinary quality of archaeological data, including chronological precision, architecture, (bio-)archaeological material and the possibility to retrace taphonomic processes. Several studies showed that social as well as economic behavior can be deducted from archaeological remains.
The detailed examination of the three case studies of Murten Pantschau (ca. 3430-3415 B.C.), Sutz-Lattringen Riedstation VI (ca. 3393-3388 B.C.) and Arbon Bleiche 3 (ca. 3384-3370 B.C.) will give an insight into the chronological development and intra-site structures of Late Neolithic lake shore villages. In regard of dependencies between quantities and population size, the presented investigation will compare the quantified silex, ceramic and bone inventories from different Neolithic lake shore settlements in regard to available population proxies. The method of scaling material from excavated settlements do contain noise factors, namely excavation techniques, conditions of conservation, the circumstances of settlement abandonment and its chronological development, which are hard to silence.