Niculica Bogdan Petru

During the Austrian occupation of the north of Moldavia (Bukowina), a lot of scholars and amateurs were interested in the local history. Some of them collected objects discovered fortuitous and after a while, they donated their collections. In the same time, the restauration works made to the historical monuments from Bukowina were very important for Romanians because those monuments were witnesses of a glorious past and the objects unearthed during the restauration works became also proofs of that glory. The works made by Karl A. Romstorfer between 1895 and 1904 at the Fortress of Suceava were the starting point for the collection of the Suceava Museum, but also for the Bukowina Museum from Cernowitz when a part of the discoveries arrived. In Bukowina, another important collections belonging to the Siret Museum and to the University from Cernowitz, both of them were donated to the Bucovina Museum. All those collections had a numismatic part, with coins discovered on the Bukowina territory, dated especially in the Medieval Ages, but also Roman and Byzantine coins. The most part of the scientific information and the objects were lost in time, after two world wars, but we can reconstitute, theoretical, the collections by using the inventories which survive till today.

Over the years, archaeologists from the “National Museum of Bukovina” in Suceava have conducted numerous surface archaeological investigations in the area of Rădăuți city and adjacent regions. These researches have resulted in the discovery of a limited number of archeological sites (14), dating from various historical periods (from prehistory to the late medieval period). As a result, a first archaeological map of Rădăuți was published (2004), after more than 20 years of research, but – we emphasize this fact – no explanation could be offered, at that time, for the precariousness of the archaeological data existing both in the urban space of Rădăuţi, and especially in the neighboring regions (we mention that in those times there was no possibility to carry out complex interdisciplinary investigations or minimal archaeological surveys).
In the spring of 2019, the undertaking of extensive works for the future ring road bypassing Rădăuți, on a length of 16,000 + 500 m, required a number of 157 stratigraphic surveys specific to archeology and 10 pedological profiles. The specialists sought to identify any traces of anthropogenic habitation on the route of the mentioned road, but, surprisingly, no archaeological traces were identified along it. The present study refers to the corroboration of the data published in 2004 with the recent ones, which suggest that not only the prehistoric human communities, but also those from the Middle Ages sought to establish settlements in certain areas, more favorable, avoiding the space bordering Rădăuți (where the ring road was planned); precisely the lack of these favorable conditions on the route of the ring road of Rădăuți is discussed and argued based on geological, geomorphological and pedological research, which enrich the archaeo‑historical image of Rădăuți.