These include 5 Austrian sites; one at Keutschachersee in Carinthia, three at Attersee and the large pile-dwelling site "See" at Mondsee.

For many years, 6 European countries have been endeavouring to place their prehistoric pile-dwelling sites under special protection. Finally, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Slovenia submitted a joint application to have their pile-dwelling sites recognised as World Heritage Sites.

111 sites are World Heritage Sites
In October 2010, the Irish archaeologist Ms M. Gowen inspected the pile-dwelling sites on Lake Mondsee and Lake Attersee on behalf of UNESCO and visited the pile-dwelling museum in Mondsee. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has now declared 111 pile-dwelling sites around the Alps a World Heritage Site.

Important pile-dwelling research on Lake Attersee and Mondsee
The Seewalchen pile-dwelling site on Lake Attersee was discovered in 1870, and Matthäus Much found the first large pile-dwelling site on Lake Mondsee in 1872. He coined the term Mondsee culture (today the Mondsee group) after the rich finds that were recovered. In the 70s and 80s of the 20th century, extensive pile-dwelling research was carried out at Mondsee and Attersee. The Mondsee Lake Dwelling Museum is unique in its kind in Austria and was founded in the 1960s. The museum manages over 6500 artefacts.

Cultural assets of international importance
The pile-dwelling sites are among the most outstanding archaeological cultural assets in Europe. Organic material such as wood, textiles, animal bones, food and the like have been preserved in the water and bogs. This makes it possible to reconstruct people's living conditions particularly well. The finds can be used to determine what was grown and eaten, and there are statistics on which animals were hunted or kept as pets. The level of technology is remarkable. The pile dwellers made tools from stone or bone, pierced tiny stone beads, fired richly decorated ceramics and already knew a metal, copper.