Research Interests: History of Slavery, Late Hallstatt - Early LT period transition, Dacian civilization, Hallstatt, Slavs, and 8 moreDacians, Archaeology Of The Migration Period And The Early Middle Ages, Hallstatt and Latene period Middle Europe, Ancient Dacian History, Early Slavs, Late Hallstatt Period, Archeology Slavs, and dacian ritual pits
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Until recently, owing to the accelerated development within the peri-urban areas, the mapped butmostly the unmapped archaeological heritage was subjected to continuous destruction. Most of the alreadyaffected archaeological sites were... more
Until recently, owing to the accelerated development within the peri-urban areas, the mapped butmostly the unmapped archaeological heritage was subjected to continuous destruction. Most of the alreadyaffected archaeological sites were entirely unknown, given the absence of thorough fieldwork in regions withhigh urban development rates. Unfortunately, such comprehensive site repertories are still lacking in Romania.Considering this but also the urgency for new urbanistic plans determined the local authorities to resort toarchaeological studies in the process of urban expansion. This paper is therefore based on a field survey report onthe urban development of Sânicolau Mare, a city situated within the boundaries of Timiș County, southwestern Romania.
This study aims to provide new insights into Europe's largest known Bronze Age earthworks using open-access and freely distributed medium resolution satellite images. The most extensive Bronze Age fortifications in Europe, namely, the... more
This study aims to provide new insights into Europe's largest known Bronze Age earthworks using open-access and freely distributed medium resolution satellite images. The most extensive Bronze Age fortifications in Europe, namely, the Corneşti-Iarcuri and Sântana-Cetatea Veche sites, were investigated through the Sentinel 2 and the newly launched Landsat 9 optical sensors. Image processing techniques were applied to both datasets, including vegetation indices, orthogonal spectral transformations, and pan-sharpening techniques. The final results revealed several known and unknown archaeological proxies by enhancing a number of linear and curved crop marks in the vicinity of the archaeological sites. Indeed, while previously implemented geophysical results confirmed some of these archaeological proxies, new findings (crop marks) were also revealed, representing archaeological structures that were unknown until now. The study's overall findings indicate that medium resolution satellite images can be used in appropriate areas with archaeological interest as a first step toward better understanding the broader context of an area. The findings addressed in this study have a direct impact on the non-invasive aspect of archaeology, as the methodology employed in this paper may be applied to various types of sites in southwestern Romania and beyond and might serve as a solid starting point for any archaeological project. Finally, this is the first elaboration of Landsat 9 intended for archaeological research and our study proves that its utility for archaeological and heritage purposes.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Remote Sensing, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Bronze Age Archaeology, Late Bronze Age archaeology, and 9 moreRemote Sensing (Archaeology), Satellite Remote Sensing (Archaeology), Bronze Age (Archaeology), Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age, Bronze Age of the Carpathian Basin, Late Bronze Age, Landsat TM, Bronze age fortification in Europa, and Landsat
Research Interests: Archaeology, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), and 15 moreLandscape Archaeology, Medieval Studies, Medieval Church History, Medieval Archaeology, Archaeological Prospection, Surveying, Magnetic field, Romania, ERT, ELECTRICAL RESISTIVITY TOMOGRAPHY, Magnetometry, Medeival Studies, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Near surface gephysics, and Castles of Medieval Hungarian Kingdom
This study presents a new way to reconstruct the extent of medieval archaeological sites by using approaches from the field of geoinformatics. Hence, we propose a combined use of non-invasive methodologies which are used for the first... more
This study presents a new way to reconstruct the extent of medieval archaeological sites by using approaches from the field of geoinformatics. Hence, we propose a combined use of non-invasive methodologies which are used for the first time to study a medieval village in Romania. The focus here will be on ground-based and satellite remote-sensing techniques. The method relies on computing vegetation indices (proxies), which have been utilized for archaeological site detection in order to detect the layout of a deserted medieval town located in southwestern Romania. The data were produced by a group of small satellites (3U CubeSats) dispatched by Planet Labs which delivered high-resolution images of the Earth’s surface. The globe is encompassed by more than 150 satellites (dimensions: 10 × 10 × 30 cm) which catch different images for the same area at moderately short intervals at a spatial resolution of 3–4 m. The four-band Planet Scope satellite images were employed to calculate a nu...
Research Interests: Geography, Geophysics, Computer Science, Remote Sensing, Medieval History, and 8 moreMedieval Studies, Medieval Archaeology, Satellite remote sensing, Remote sensing and GIS applications in Landscape Research, Medieval Hungary, Deserted Medieval Villages, History of Banat, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
Until recently, the Late Iron Age was virtually unknown in the lowland Banat, but new research has shed new light on this forgotten era. Nonetheless, the discoveries from this time continue to raise many questions. This study aims to... more
Until recently, the Late Iron Age was virtually unknown in the lowland Banat, but new research has shed new light on this forgotten era. Nonetheless, the discoveries from this time continue to raise many questions. This study aims to recreate the ancient habitat of a small area of the historic Banat riverscape that grew up around the Dacian fortification known as Unip-Dealu Cetățuica. Traditional and cutting-edge methods alike have been used to map human settlements and study the local paleohydrology. 14 sites dating from the Late Iron Age were discovered over 6000 hectares during the systematic field survey. The core drilling procedure was based on the analysis of the existing LiDAR scans of the entire area. Using the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) method, we could calculate the absolute age and activity period of the river throughout five generations. The results facilitated a closer examination of the relationship between settlement topography and the dynamics of water bodies, indicating preferences or trends in how human communities chose the location for their settlements. Future geophysical investigations and invasive research can improve the overall accuracy of the results.
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To understand the functioning of fluvial systems it is important to investigate dynamics of sediment transport and the source of sediments. In case of reconstructing past processes these studies must be accompanied by the numerical dating... more
To understand the functioning of fluvial systems it is important to investigate dynamics of sediment transport and the source of sediments. In case of reconstructing past processes these studies must be accompanied by the numerical dating of sediment samples. In this respect optically stimulated luminescence is a widely used technique, by which the time of sediment deposition can be directly dated. Recently, in various fluvial environments it has been shown that certain luminescence properties of minerals, and especially that of quartz, can be applied as indicators of fluvial erosion and/or sediment provenance. These properties are residual luminescence (or residual dose) and luminescence sensitivity of quartz grains. However, the values of the parameters above are affected by various factors, the importance of which is under debate. The present study therefore aims to assess these factors along a ~560 km long reach of River Mureş (Maros) a relatively large river with a compound sur...
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One of the most important uses of water throughout history is its use as energy source. According to documents, the low plain area of the Banat, crossed by many rivers and streams was a watermills’ land for several centuries. The recent... more
One of the most important uses of water throughout history is its use as energy source. According to documents, the low plain area of the Banat, crossed by many rivers and streams was a watermills’ land for several centuries. The recent field research we have conducted confirms the high density of these structures in a segment of the lower Timiș, south of the Timișoara city, an almost unknown and endangered river heritage. A careful archaeological documenting of the situation on site contrasted with the analysis of dozens of historical maps and certain background data provided by history and dendrochronology, allowed us to outline a spatial and temporal picture of these hydraulic systems. We undertake this investigation as a small, first step of a resourceful research subdomain, necessary for the historical specificity of the Banat, namely river archaeology or riverscape archaeology as an integral part of historical archaeology.