Birch bark pitch is the oldest all-purpose adhesive in history. Ötzi used birch pitch to affix his arrowheads to the shafts of the arrows; other prehistoric peoples glued broken pottery with birch pitch, or sealed canoes with it. Recently, science has also solved the mystery of how it was produced.

5,000 years ago, people in Europe began erecting stone stelae in the shape of humans. These monuments were likenesses of ancestors that served to unify and nourish the village community through rituals, and legitimised land ownership.

Stone stelas from Neolithic Europe tell of a new social class: the heavily armed warriors who were supposed to protect the property of the elites.

Pottery was being made in what is now Switzerland as long ago as 3800 BC. Now, there’s no longer any industrial production in this country. But some big names have remained.

Who invented the wheel? Historians still debate this point today. And the Zurich region is in the running to claim the honour. Wheels dating from the Neolithic period have been found here.

Inscriptions, grave finds and remains bear witness to the enduring relationship between humans and dogs, extending across millennia.

The National Museum Zurich houses one of the oldest preserved doors in Europe. The Robenhausen door is more than 5,500 years old.

Writing first appeared on the territory of modern-day Switzerland 2,500 years ago, south of the Alps. Some of Europe’s oldest evidence of writing in a Celtic language has been found in Ticino and the Val Mesolcina.