An archaeology of the mountains in Maramureş, Romania:

The legacy of millennial-scale land-use practices on landscape composition, diversity and slope erosion in the subalpine areas of Eastern Carpathians, Romania

“…The two multi-proxy archives demonstrate that prehistoric and historic land use practices of variable intensities strongly altered the structure of the subalpine landscapes in Rodna and Maramures Mts. Archaeological traces of Neolithic and Eneolithic settlements in the surrounding river-valleys (Figure 1) and artefacts at 1400–1600 m asl associated with game hunters and livestock grazing (Bobînă, 2015, 2018; Dragoman et al, 2015) support the occurrence of occasional human activities at high elevation in our study area since at least 6400 cal yr BP. These align with regional palynological evidence of montane forest grazing by livestock since 6000–6500 cal yr BP across the Carpathians (e.g.…”

“…Rate of change and rarefaction analysis demonstrate dynamic changes in vegetation composition and diversity over the past 2000 years at GR and around 1100 cal yr BP and last 400 years at VD, as an effect of land-use intensification. Archaeological evidence shows numerous artefacts dating to the Early Iron Age at both sites, though more common on the southern slopes of the Rodna Mts, and from the High Middle Ages across the Maramureș Mts, and linked to mining and pastoral activities (Bobînă, 2015(Bobînă, , 2018Dragoman et al, 2015;Kacsó et al, 2010). Documentary sources also mention mining and pasturing in the area since the Iron Age (Arhiva Someșană, 1928;Borcoş and Udubaşa, 2012), which may have increased the demand for wood.…”

Social Context of Late Medieval and Early Modern Deforestation Periods in the Apuseni Mountains (Romania) based on an Integrated Evaluation of Historical and Paleobotanical Records

“…Although archaeological research has a centuries-old tradition in the region, research has been limited primarily to densely populated basins and valleys. The first results of mountain archaeology are already available from the Romanian Carpathians (Andronic and Niculică 2012;Bobînă 2015;Dragoman et al 2018). However, more accurate dating of sporadic settlement remains, determination of their periodic or permanent nature and exploration of the historical dimensions of population movements (e.g.…”