Aesch, Basel-Landschaft

Aesch is a town of about 10,300 inhabitants in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland, often written Aesch BL to distinguish it from other places of the same name. Almost all of its area lies on the left, western bank of the Birs, and it is a suburb of Basel. It is first mentioned in 1252 as Esch, but people lived here far earlier: the Neolithic gravesite in the Gmeiniwald, a dolmen grave of the third millennium BC discovered in 1907, held the remains of 47 people, including 14 children, with arrows, spears, flint knives and pottery, and it is listed as a heritage site of national significance. A middle Bronze Age settlement dating from 1500 to 1300 BC was found along the Fluhstrasse in 1977, and a bronze-casting workshop from about 1300 BC was uncovered at Känelacker in 1923. Three Roman estates stood here between the 1st and 4th centuries, and traces of their viticulture have been found.