The Wauwiler Plain and Climate Change
18 February 2022
The planet Earth is about four billion years old. Humankind is one of the most recent species, around three hundred thousand years old.
Twenty million years before the arrival of Homo sapiens, the territory of the present-day canton of Lucerne was an ocean with subtropical sea coasts. The remains of fossilised shells and palm leaves in rocks at altitudes of up to 1 000-1 500 metres bear witness to this situation.
Twenty thousand years ago, however, the canton lay under an eight hundred to one thousand metre thick layer of ice and snow from glaciers. The Gletschergarten in Lucerne (www. gletschergarten.ch) provides an impressive and multifaceted overview of this (geographically) recent history of climate change over time.
These climate changes can also be observed on a hike through the Wauwiler Plain (die Wauwiler Ebene) and the lake areas of the Mauensee and the Sempachersee in the canton of Lucerne.
In the Netherlands, when one thinks of peat bogs, one thinks first of the peat lakes in the Netherlands but not of central Switzerland.
However, in the canton of Lucerne, there is a large area of peat, the Wauwilermoos and the Hagimoos, where peat was extracted on a large scale until the beginning of the 20th century.
The area was formed when temperatures rose after the last Ice Age, around 12 000 years ago. A side arm of the enormous Reuss Glacier, up to 800 metres high and several kilometres wide, slowly melted away around 14 000-12 000 years ago.
There were three lakes, the Wauwilersee, the Hagimoosee and the Mauensee. Only the Mauensee still exists today; the others have dried up, leaving behind a swampy area, the Wauwilermoos and the Hagimoos.
The first hunters and nomads arrived in this period. Hunting, fishing and primitive dwellings and caves provided the first necessities of life. Only after further climate warming did the first sedentary settlements and farming appear around 5 000 B.C in this region.
The vegetation changed, and higher areas became suitable for agriculture. It was also an ideal habitat for fish, wildlife and grazers. The lower areas were too swampy for agriculture but a good habitat for flora and fauna. More and more people inhabited this area from 10 000 B.C. onwards.
The Wauwiler Ebene is even one of the most important archaeological sites from the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) in Central Europe (c. 10 000- c. 4 000 B.C.). About thirty settlements are known from this period. They were located along the shores of lakes and swamps.
The lake dwellings of the youngest Stone Age (the Neolithic period, 4000/2000-800 B.C.) are reminders of these settlements. In Wauwil, an information pavilion and replicas of these dwellings and the inhabitants’ way of life have been realised.
This history in the Wauwiler Ebene, a relatively unknown area outside Switzerland, brings humankind into the allmighty nature’s perspective.
(Source and further information: (www.wauwil.ch).
The Swiss Alpine Club
The Swiss Alpine Club (Schweizer Alpen Club, SAC/Club Alpin Suisse, CAS) regularly organises hiking trips in this region (and elsewhere).
Although the name suggests otherwise, the SAC not only organises ski tours, mountaineering and other sports in the high mountains and the Alps but also (hiking) activities in other regions.
Proofreader: Adrian Dubock