In Piedmont, many lakes and peat bogs have yielded Bronze Age materials, leading scholars to believe that these were now well-equipped societies, composed of small human groups that lived mainly in pile dwellings, possessed weapons, produced pottery with their own characteristics, exchanged goods with other populations and were familiar with the horse and cart, although they travelled mainly by water.
It is now safe to assume that these populations had itinerants within them who maintained contact with continental Europe via Alpine passes. For example, important evidence has been found in Piverone: bronze swords made of materials from the Rhine and Seine areas.
In the San Giovanni Canavese peat bog, 13 pirogues, each carved from a single tree trunk, and a stone axe were found. At Trana, in the Mareschi peat bog, a polished green stone axe and other chipped stones were recovered, possibly knives or arrowheads, as well as a sword and a bronze axe.
But the most important discoveries occurred at Lake Viverone. At least three settlements existed here, including a village of four large huts, connected to the shore by a footbridge of logs. Dozens of bronze weapons emerged from the lake: swords, daggers and razors
