Cortaillod

The neolithic Cortaillod culture was named after Cortaillod, where four neolithic villages have been discovered.

Cortaillod gave its name to the Cortaillod culture, a neolithic culture in Switzerland and surrounding areas. There are four neolithic sites along the lake shore at Cortaillod; La Fabrique or Le Vivier which is now eroding, Les Cotes which was almost completely washed out in 1880, Petit-Cortaillod and La Tuillières. At La Tuillières several large flint and stone axes were found. Petit-Cortaillod is the largest and most productive. It is about 300 m × 60 m and is between 0.6 to 1.25 m thick. These sites were originally underwater, but were discovered when the water level of Lake Neuchâtel dropped. Because they were no longer flooded, between 1876 and 1879 the sites were looted. Many items were bought by museums or private collectors with limited study and documentation. The first scientific study was done in 1878 by Albert Vouga and Fritz Borel at the Petit-Cortaillod site. Their first excavations went down to a chalk layer at a depth of 1.25 m . The list of objects excavated on this occasion is impressive: thousands of flints and awls made of bone, 3,000 ax shafts, and about 2,000 smaller axes and hatchets.

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