Northern ItalyItaly has furnished abundant evidence of the ‘pile-dwelling phenomenon[aut]Pile-dwelling phenomenon’ which is found throughout the Alpine area. Neolithic pile-dwellings[aut]Pile-dwelling are known for northern ItalyItaly starting from the Early Neolithic (Isolino di VareseIsolino di Varese). However, lake-dwelling villages were most widespread in Northern ItalyItaly between about 2000 and 1400 BC, between the Early and Middle Bronze Age, and continued in the Late Bronze Age. At a time when in other Alpine regions pile-dwellings[aut]Pile-dwelling became rarer, in a large part of northern Italian territory they became the main settlement[aut]Settlement model. Pile-dwelling[aut]Pile-dwelling villages spread from western PiedmontPiedmont to VenetoVeneto, from TrentinoTrentino to the lower LombardyLombardy and VenetoVeneto plains, along the banks of lakes[aut]Lake, peat bogs[aut]Peat bog and river[aut]Riverine environmentriver depressions. The main concentration of pile-dwelling[aut]Pile-dwelling settlements[aut]Settlement was in the Varese lakes[aut]Lake and around Lake GardaLake Garda. In recent decades, in part thanks to the introduction of dendrochronology, our knowledge of these sites has deepened. New excavations, scientific analysis and dendrochronology have helped to increase our knowledge of these settlements[aut]Settlement.