Prehistoric hut gives clues to ancient Alp life

LIFE BACK THEN

The ruins of the ancient alpine hut discovered in the Silvretta mountains near the Austrian border is just one more puzzle piece that archaeologists can use to assemble a picture of what life was like thousands of years ago.

Botanists also worked on the site to help determine what the climate could have been like when the hut was in use. "It's clear that humans have had an impact on the landscape for a very long time," said Thomas Reitmaier, an archaeologist at Zurich University. "We think of these alpine pastures as being very beautiful but they're really the result of man."

The hut found practically on the back steps of Switzerland's Heidelberg Hut, south of Ischgl, Austria, sits on a windswept, treeless area that leads up to the Fimber Pass. The site was most likely in the woods when it was built, Reitmaier says, because fossilised trees dating to around the same time have been found preserved in bogs nearby. People have since chopped down the trees for pasture land, building homes and making fires.

Today the site is most easily reached via the Austrian side, where a rough road winds up to the hut. In ancient times, however, people would have most likely crossed over the Fimber Pass from the Swiss side – a four-hour walk – because the Swiss valleys held known settlements. The Austrian side had none.

The land on the Swiss side, however, is too steep for grazing, so early herdsmen would have needed to push higher into the mountains to find suitable regions. This would have left lower fields open for growing grains safely away from trampling cows.