Thun

A town where the Aare flows out of its lake, thirty kilometres southeast of Bern. People have lived here since the Neolithic, and in the early Bronze Age settlements ran along the lakeshore and the river. A grave at Renzenbühl held one of the richest collections of early Bronze Age artefacts in Europe, including an axe of about 1800 BC that is one of the earliest known examples of damascening anywhere; the gold inlay on it may carry a numerical or astronomical meaning. Another site at Wiler held some 1,500 maritime snail shells.