the villages demonstrated the importance and validity of stratigraphic observations, and, thanks to the excellent state of preservation of botanical and osteological remains, they drew the naturalists’ attention to proto-history. Thus, they undoubtedly contributed significantly to the development of prehistoric research, first by reconciling historical, human, and natural sciences in the same subject and then by making this research widely popular. In 1867, during the Universal Exhibition in Paris, the lake-dwelling remains were considered to be the most interesting thing Switzerland had to offer the rest of the world.

Lake-dwelling research developed very swiftly across all the Swiss lakes as well as on dried-out marshes. These studies also extended to neighboring countries, either on Swiss archaeologists’ initiative, such as in northern Italy (Aspes 1994), in Savoy, and in austria, or more independently, such as in southern Germany.

If the excavations grew in quantity, it was mainly because of the abundance of material and the fact that the assembly of lake-dwelling collections had now become fashionable. The intensive marketing of prehistoric relics resulted in a few unfortunate incidents, such as the case of the fakes of Concise, in 1859, which deceived some famous archaeologists, such as Troyon (Vayson de Pradenne 1932, 62–64). After the first Jura Surface Waters Regulation Scheme (1869–1883), which lowered the water level of Lakes Bienne, Morat, and Neuchâtel by more than two meters, many archaeological sites were exposed and within walking reach. The collectors’ frenzy grew so that a general plundering of these archives of the past was feared, and in order to avoid such abuses, the local authorities established legislation that subjected excavations to official permission. The last quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed a decline in the interest for lake-dwelling sites. Contemporaries attribute the decline to “the deposits being worked out,” which is clearly at variance with the results of modern excavations.

There is an epistemological problem in the disinterest. Theory having preceded research, research had to confine itself to illustrating and strengthening Keller’s interpretation. So, little by little, one was faced with a lack of real issues. Because their work was essentially centered on the presentation of the objects, the searchers were soon condemned to finding only what they called “doublets.” The dogma of the cultural homogeneity of lake-dwelling populations, established by Keller, also hindered attempts at a sharper differentiation, either chronological or typological. With the poverty of stratigraphic observations, which most of the time were limited to discerning “the archaeological layer” from the different sterile ones, each site was individually seen as part of a homogeneous whole. In such circumstances, typological attempts, such as that of V. Gross (1883), were destined to remain purely stylistic. With regard to building methods, the traditional interpretation was so firmly rooted in people’s minds that any interest in sharper observations of architectural vestiges could not be imagined. Therefore, because of its success Keller’s pattern, which had led to the rapid development of research, turned out to be a strong shackle opposed to any renewal of approach.

Although the lake dwellings were clearly the main subject of archaeological research in the second half of the nineteenth century, work on them was not the only archaeological work being done. Along with many secondary works, both in proto-history and in historical archaeology, two Iron Age sites were discovered: the Tiefenau deposit (Bern) in 1849 and la tène (Neuchâtel) in 1857. As early as 1865, Desor, comparing the two sites with the alesia excavations in france, organized by the Emperor Napoleon III, compared the first to Iron Age mounds by setting them in a period immediately prior to the Gallic War of about 60 b.c. This observation led him to propose, successfully as we now recognize, the division of the Iron Age into two chronological periods, the earlier Hallstatt and the later la tène. Moreover, with his French colleague gabriel de mortillet, he proved, from excavations at Marzabotta, that the Gauls had invaded northern italy by comparing some finds of this site with the remains of Teifenau burials in France and at the La Tène site.

Swiss prehistoric archaeology became more significant during the late nineteenth century,