The Alpine Rhine Valley, which extends deep into the Alps, forms the most important access to the Central Alps when viewed from the north and leads directly into the southern Alpine area between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como. This central axis was used as a settlement area in prehistoric times and formed an alpine transit route par excellence. The aim of my dissertation project is to work out a diachronic synthesis of this zone, which is important for questions of mobility and cultural transfer. The focus is on the Alpine Rhine Valley and neighboring inner-Alpine valley landscapes as well as the regions at the exit of the traversal. The basics of my work are material and findings from inner-Alpine Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement sites. For comparisons, the well-researched north-alpine landscapes on Lake Zurich and Lake Constance as well as the south-alpine between Lago Maggiore and Lago di Como are used. Individual sites in the Alpine Rhine Valley are being scientifically investigated for the first time as part of the project, so that a contribution is made to the development of sources and chronology. Even the Neolithic finds show evidence of exchange and communication between inner-Alpine and pre-Alpine regions according to the ceramic styles. From the Bronze Age onwards, clear influences from the north and south can be seen in the central Alpine region, which claim for trade routes over the Alpine passes. In the period between 3000 and 2500 BC, the foothills of the Alps are subject to massive changes which have a push effect in the direction of marginal, less densely populated areas. The wide range of local resources in new territories and strategically easily controllable areas suggest at the same time a pull effect in the direction of the Alpine region.
With this dissertation project I would like to investigate the question of how transalpine mobility can be archaeologically proven and how it developed in the course of prehistoric epochs and what forms of cultural transfer result from it. Specifically, the following objectives are pursued:
1. Source indexing: processing of important, unpublished find complexes.
2. Chronology: clarification of the settlement history Neolithic and Bronze Age (5500-800 BC).
3. Development of models for mobility and cultural transfer in the Alpine region.
