Ferdinand Keller (antiquity scholar)

Ferdinand Keller ( born December 24, 1800 Mart Halen, † July 21, 1881 in Zurich ) was a Swiss archaeologist and antiquary. He founded the prehistoric research in Switzerland.

Life and work

In winter 1854/55 port facilities were expanded and made ​​attempts to seize the hour to land reclamation due to the exceptionally low water levels in the various lakes of Central Switzerland. In this work, we joined in miles ( archaeological site Rorenhaab mile ) Lake Zurich on remains of wooden piles, pottery, bones and other remains of settlement. Ferdinand Keller developed based on these finds his Pfahlbautheorie that led to an actual Pfahlbaufieber and to the discovery of dozens of pile dwellings on the lakes of the Swiss Plateau and at Lake Constance in the following decades.

In the late 1860s were in the dredging in connection with the construction of several prehistoric settlements Seequaianlagen in the city of Zurich - Small and Large Hafner and when Bauschänzli and Alpenquai - discovered and documented probably 1868/69 by Ferdinand Keller. Keller writes in 1872 in his report to the Antiquarian Society in Zurich: " As a friendly perk we looked at the permission that the machine ( excavator ) was allowed for about two days on the big Hafner move to there to draw deep furrows. " His 1879 published profile sketch of the sea floor shows, from top to bottom, a 45 -inch-thick layer of stone, culture layer (15 cm) and sand, silt and clay. Keller pointed to a variety of needs in the lake bottom piles. Further investigations followed to a lesser extent around the year 1883, in which more than 50 bronze and more than 100 stone ax to have come to the fore ( the majority of the finds was lost ).

The original Pfahlbautheorie of Ferdinand Keller with their exclusively built on stilts in the water buildings is scientifically outdated, today people speak of wet soil settlements.

Ferdinand Keller was the founder and first president of the Antiquarian Society in Zurich. He was an honorary member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory.

Writings (selection )

• The panorama of Zurich. Description of the visible in Zurich environments Mountains, together with description of the running in the 1837 ascent of Tödiberges. Orell, Füssli and Company, Zurich 1840