The 13 pile-dwelling sites of the Varese area
UNESCO SITES
1 Isolino Virginia
5 Bodio Centrale pile dwelling
11 Sabbione pile dwelling
ASSOCIATED SITES
3 Ponti pile dwelling
4 Desor Maresco pile dwelling
6 Gaggio Keller pile dwelling
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
2 Palude Brabbia - 7 Ranchet pile dwelling - 8 Stoppani pile dwelling - 9 Biandronno peat bog - 10 Occhio pile dwelling - 12 Pozzolo pile dwelling - 13 Pioppette pile dwelling
Nineteen of these sites are in Italy. Ten are in Lombardy, three of them in the province of Varese: the Virginia islet, the Bodio Centrale (or “delle Monete”) pile dwelling and the Sabbione di Cadrezzate pile dwelling. Along with the sites on the list, UNESCO has also recognised a series of “associated sites”, archaeological complexes of notable cultural relevance that, at the time of creating the list in 2011, did not satisfy the full requirements for inclusion. On Lake Varese the “associated sites” are Gaggio Keller, the Desor (or Maresco) pile dwelling and the Ponti (or Cazzago di Cazzago Brabbia) pile dwelling.
Pile dwellings through the ages
The pile dwellings of Lake Varese
After the last Ice Age, the landscape of the Varese area slowly transformed. When a favourable climate finally set in, during the sixth millennium BC,
the first small communities settled along the shores of Lake Varese. Over the Middle and Late Neolithic and the Copper Age, the population grew,
spreading to Bodio, Bardello, Biandronno, Gavirate and Cazzago Brabbia. Settlement reached its peak between the Early and Middle Bronze Age
(around 1800–1500 BC), when the first forms of village organisation took shape.
A dense network of trade linked the villages, with goods and technologies passing constantly from one to another. Along the lakes and rivers,
commerce reached across the whole subalpine area.
Between the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC, the pile-dwelling areas were gradually abandoned, in a process that so far remains poorly documented;
by the end of the Late Bronze Age, the villages lay deserted and forgotten.
The NeoBodio Museum of Bodio Lomnago
In the NeoBodio Museum will open in Bodio Lomnago, on the shores of Lake Varese: major archaeological finds recovered from the lakebed, a reconstruction of a pile-dwelling hut, and an immersive room screening never-before-seen footage of the pile-dwelling sites beneath the lakes of the Varese area.
DISCOVER THE MUSEUM →