4th Millennium B.C.

Linz lies on the Danube at 266m above sea level, where the river breaks between the Kürnberger Wood and the Mühlviertel to enter the plain.  The withdrawal of the crystalline between the Kürnberg, Pöstlingberg and Pfenningberg has formed a bay, a semicircle to the North traced by the course of the Danube.

Several terraces lie to the South, up to the point where the Traun meets the Danube around 7 kilometres below the city centre.  Of these a higher, well-developed lower terrace served as a terrace for ancient settlers. The castle and the western outskirts are built on higher, early ice-age terraces.

The significance of the settlement has been marked since time immemorial by the East-West path of the Danube, divided by the North-South line which marks the shortest route from the Adriatic to the Baltic Seas. The Linz area has been settled constantly since the late Stone Age (Neolithic period). Early Bronze Age urn sites and burial sites from the Hallstatt-period on the site currently occupied by the VOEST-Alpine are especially worth mentioning, as are prehistoric ramparts on the Freinberg and the Gründberg.