The prehistory

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The pile-dwelling on Lake Ledro is one of the most important documents about the first inhabitants of our alpine valley: we are dealing with an whole village (about 10.000 piles) from the Bronze Age, which goes back to almost 3.700 years ago (to be precise 1709 BC, according to the studies of Prof. Barfield, University of Birmingham). Referring to the prehistorical findings we assume that the pile-dwellers used to work in the fields and till the soil; they also created pottery and clothes and faced long journeys for trade. On the whole their standard of living was quite high. Later, after the Bronze Age, it seems that pre-Latin people settle down in the Ledro Valley, they were probably called "Aleutraenses" (where the valley’s name may come from) as Plinius mentions them in his "Natural History".