High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps is a series of prehistoric pile-dwelling (or stilt house) settlements in and around the Alps built from around 5000 to 500 B.C. on the edges of lakes, rivers or wetlands. 111 sites, located in Austria (5 sites), France (11), Germany (18), Italy (19), Slovenia (2), and Switzerland (56), were added to UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 2011. In Slovenia, this is the first cultural world heritage site.