Lobsigensee
Prehistoric pile dwellings UNESCO
The Lobsigesee - or Lobsigensee - is a lake in the municipality of Seedorf in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. Its name comes from the place Lobsigen nearby.
- 4.1 UNESCO World Heritage
Location
The Lobsigesee is topographically in the southeastern outskirts of the Bernese Lakes region on a slightly lowered and gently sloping to the northeast, gutter-shaped, 500 mx 2100 m large plateau on the northern slope of Frienisberges. The lake is 15 km from the outskirts of Bern and three kilometers from Aarberg.
The lake is located here in the municipality of Seedorf, 100 m north of the village street of Lobsigen to Seedorf - a straight line approximately 500 meters northeast of Lobsigen and about 1100 m south-west of Seedorf - surrounded by wetlands belt with scattered trees and groups of trees - an open field.
Accessible is the Lobsigesee about by Seedorf leading Hauptstrasse 236 Aarberg -Berne. In public transport, the Lobigesee can be achieved by the Postbus 105 Bern Lyss. From the lower village road leads a Path to and only partially marked path around the lake.
Lobsigesee - Unterdorfstrasse direction Seedorf
Lobsigesee - dirt road from the lower village road to the small lake
Environment
The area of the oval -shaped Lobsigesees is surrounded by a ten- to 40 -meter-wide wetland belt. This consists of Ried with typical reeds and cattails and marsh, bog and moorland with scattered trees and groups of trees.
Embedded is the field of natural, on the shore with floating mats covered Still waters in wet meadows, which are in turn surrounded by cultivated land used for agricultural purposes. The agricultural zone sometimes reaches up to 100 m in the wetland.
At the southeastern shore there is a raised, wooden observation platform that allows a view of the pond.
Lobsigesee - view from observation deck on the lake to the north
Lobsigesee - view from observation deck on the lake to the northeast with Aspi bei Seedorf in the background
Lobsigesee - runoff Seebach
Siltation risk
The Lobsigesee is fed mainly by rainfall, underground infiltration and drainage most likely the surrounding cultivated land, which constitutes the largest component of natural catchment area of almost 85%. Outflow is at the northern end of the lake by the Seebach. This - partially dammed in recent years at the bottom by beavers, without consequences for the lake - flows in a northeasterly direction in less than 5 km southeast before entering the town Lyss in the Lyssbach, the front Busswil turn flows west into the Alte Aare.
The origins of the ecological ordeal of the small lake at the latest in 1858 he began with the first reclamation through a channel -. Present Seebach - the then Seedorfmooses, which was a fen in ecological understanding and could be referred to in the hydrological sense as siltation Moor. A further draining of the sea area, also for the recovery of agricultural land and degradation of peat, was 1928-1934 with the artificial lowering of the lake water level by 1.2 m. In the years 1940/1950er artificial depressions and drainages to have taken place. Witnesses report at least of drainage work around the lake since 1945.
By agriculturally productive area used by the Lobsigeee, kept on getting fertilizer - in the form of liquid manure and manure with ingredients such as phosphorus and, more recently decreasing, nitrogen compounds - through infiltration into the lake. In the summer, with longer warm periods it also leads to oxygen depletion. The pond is considered to be heavily contaminated and very productive and can thus be highly eutrophic - to put it simply: rich in nutrients and low in oxygen - are referred to.
Due to the high nutrient content in the standing, flat - the maximum depth of the lake is 2.5 m - waters there is excessive growth of aquatic plants, as well as zoo - and phytoplankton. When the algae die, the dead biomass forms over time a ever increasing layer of silt on the lake bottom of the shallow lake. Without appropriate measures, the lake is silted up within a few decades, and thus also be dried.
The Lobsigesee is an isolated and embattled habitat, yet he in the protection perimeter of the zone plan of the municipality of Seedorf as an ecological reserve - bathing, driving with boats and fishing is thus generally prohibited - is located and since 1955 is a nature reserve; comprehensible as Government Decision No. 5027 and as NSG no. 31 - Nature reserve number - in the community Seedorf.
Formation
The emergence of Lobsigesees must geologically a larger context, be seen as part of the Frienisberges. This has its origin in the Alpine Molasse Basin, which during the Paleogene and Neogene erdzeitlichen stages - until the year 2000 known collectively as tertiary - was formed. Within this, the period of educated before 65.5 to 2.588 million years before the Molasse Basin, it is in the zone, which is referred to as Vorlandmolasse.
As part of this Vorlandmolassegebietes, consists of Frienisberg from Molassekonglomerat. The surrounding area of the base and large portions of the slope will be here from Lower Freshwater Molasse - formed by a layer of sediment Upper Marine Molasse - - created million years ago, about 28 to 22 is superimposed - originated about 22 million years ago to 16. The latter make up the ridge of Frienisberges.
The now well-known surface design was later held during the Ice Age, about 115,000 - 10,000 years ago before today. In particular, the Rhone glacier shaped by glacial surface shaping the landscape in the Swiss Plateau, which belongs to the Bernese Seeland and thus the Frienisberg. The glacier extended into the region of Solothurn, where he in the Bern region met before the glacial Aaregletscher. The Würm glacial ended around 10,000 years ago before today, with the beginning of the Holocene, the " now time " continues to this day in the Quaternary on the geological time scale.
As a result of his back melting from the Central Plateau 16'000 - 18'000 years ago, before today, left the glacial Rhone glacier in the Swiss Plateau, a moraine. This revealed numerous, formed by massive chunks of ice, trough-shaped troughs in the form of small lakes, so-called kettle holes or Toteisbecken. Many of these glacial lakes are silted up and only a few are left.
One of these still existing kettle holes is the Lobigesee, must have been considerably larger which earlier. A note on the former extent, supplies the presence of marl, which often can be found under silt fens and points to the existence of an open body of water in front of the bog formation. The marl is found in two sediment layers at depths of 7.4-7.6 m and 7.7-7.8 m, which means old moderately 10'000 - 11'000 years ago.
In the same period and in a similar way as the Lobsigesee, Inkwiler and Burgäschisee were also approximately 30 km and 33 km north-eastern formed, which, interestingly, each located on the Canton of Bern- Solothurn.
Settlement history
The oldest found on Lobsigesee settlement remains are about 5,900 years old. They are the Cortaillod culture attributed to an archaeological culture of the Neolithic period, also known as the Neolithic period. Other classifications, they also expect to the Neolithic, in each case the same period is meant. Is especially interesting in this temporal relationship, the documentation from the year 2007 an even older, Mesolithic - Middle Stone Age - layer under the prehistoric Pfahlbaustrukturen, which could be produced through a narrow Schuch cut. Their significance is still unclear and requires further, more extensive investigations.
The size of the currently known settlement area is about 3000 square meters, which corresponds to an oval -shaped area of approximately 40 mx 75 m. It is located on the north to north-western shore, between Seebach and Allmit.
The settlement site at Lobsigesee is not a stilt houses in popular or romantic sense, but a wet soil settlement. As evidence for this, the remains can be seen by discovered boardwalks that have been laid on the wet shore base and that a total of only very few wooden posts have been found. As further drilling results aufzeigten, this settlement is likely on an island, and have not been in the sea water near the shore. What also suggests that the Lobsigesee before 4 and more for thousands of years, has been much greater before today.
The other finds from the settlement consists mostly of conspicuous small zerscherbter pottery, flint, bone tools, a few stone axes, numerous Lehmstrichen of house floors and animal bones, which are likely accounted for by food waste from the previous occupants. Especially interesting are the aforementioned Flint, also known as flint or just Silex, which originates from the Southern Alps and rock crystal from the Alps.
The latter findings are vague on whether the settlers traded or traveled extensively for hunting took, besides the growing of crops, collecting herbs or the local hunting and fishing. Also open is the question of how long the colonization lasted and whether the Lobsigesee was repeatedly colonized.
The first archaeological finds are likely to have occurred with the first reduction of the lake level for the reclamation of Seedorfmosses mid-19th century. 50 years later led the Historical Museum Bern in 1909 by private finds himself a Sondiergrabung by and confirmed the discovery. Found then piles, wattle, clay, bone and shards. 1924 and 1953 were held rather smaller excavations. Where in 1953 hardly piles were found. 2005 and 2007, after another interruption of more than 50 years, more archaeological soundings with contemporary methods took place in order to capture still unknown, exact location and size of the site until then. Festival was highlighted also that the water table was consistently below the archaeological layers. What the mean irretrievable loss, as the water is no longer present as a preservative element.
The archaeological age determination by analysis of the individual sedimentary deposits and their relation in simple terms, with each other - - For the age determination of the finds from the Neolithic settlement, in recent decades, the stratigraphy applied. The samples for analysis by drilling - for taking soil samples and drill core - or by search interface - an excavation technique in which a profile for probing the area is dug - brought to light. - Dendrochronological datings are currently not possible due to the short tree-ring sequences and the only conditionally suitable timber.
The findings of the archaeobotanical studies from the 1980's to help support for determining the age of the settlement site. The cores obtained from almost 10 m deep holes were primarily using pollen analysis, scientifically known as Palynology, examined. The drill core is up to 7.4 m of gyttja, two Seekreideschichten and the rest of Silt. Where the whole core is mixed with pollen concentrations corresponding to the respective time. Thus, in the period of the Neolithic settlement herbal maximum.
UNESCO World Heritage
2011, the remains of the lake dwellings were included in the inventory of the UNESCO World Heritage List on Lobsigesse along with 110 other sites in six Alpine countries by UNESCO. Of these six sites are located in the canton of Bern - five Lake Biel and the reference to the Lobsigesee - as part of the 56 sites in Switzerland, which are distributed over 15 cantons.
The description of the Lobsigensee UNESCO application on the website of the association Palafittes:
After years of preparation time by interested professionals from six countries - Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Slovenia - in June 2008 as an association Palafittes with headquarters in Bern in Switzerland, in 2010, the Nomination Dossier for international candidature Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps are a UNESCO world Heritage Site, submitted. 111 sites with the greatest scientific potential, were selected from over 1,000 known localities for this serial nomination. So also the archaeological site CH -BE- 05 Lobsigesee, which was preferred due to the better preservation state of archaeological site Moossee.
In order to improve the legal and factual protection of Lobsigesee archaeological site in the future, measures are planned, such as enlargement of Naurschutzzone and the restoration of the wetlands with continuous monitoring of soil moisture. So even land purchases were made in the context.
Lobsigesee - excavation site with one of the tensiometer for measuring soil moisture