5000 BC to 58 BC

Lake villages and La Tene

From about 5000 BC farmers built villages on stilts along the shores of Swiss lakes; their remains are now a world heritage site. Later, the site of La Tene, on Lake Neuchatel, gave its name to the art of the Celtic Iron Age from around 450 BC. By the first century BC the Celtic Helvetii held the plateau between the Jura and the Alps.