Archaeological geomorphometry and geomorphography. Case study on Cucuteni-an sites from Ruginoasta and Scânteia, Iași County, Romania

Abstract

The identification of intrinsic bonds between the men and the geographic space where they lived is one of the desiderata that any archaeologist tries to reach through systemic analysis of an archaeological site reported to the environment. Modern Archaeology uses work methods and techniques borrowed from Geography, which, both for Prehistory and for Antiquity or for the Middle Ages, can offer relevant scientific data regarding the choosing of the place for a house, the placing of a settlement, the preference for certain territories, etc. It is irrefutable the fact that the men constitutes as part of the nature and that they lived in a communion with the environment, dependent of the staple resources, of the geostrategic advantages, of the climatic environment, etc. From the wide pallet of interdisciplinary studies of landscape archaeology, we stopped upon the work methods borrowed from geomorphology (geomorphometry and geomorphography), starting from data gathered while performing the topographical measurements of the Cucuteni archaeological sites from Scânteia and Ruginoasa, Iasi County, Romania. The method, borrowed from Geography, proved to be an excellent historic and archaeological analysis instrument, with surprising results, and this study wants to be a stimulus to use this method at the beginning of any systematic archaeological research, for all types of sites and era. The work methods of the archaeologists’ team from the West University of Timisoara are based on topographical measurements taken with a total station, on orthophotogramms and satellite images analysis, on landscape analysis and geo-physical prospections (magnetometry). The GIS processing of site obtained data corroborated with data obtained from systematic archaeological research of the two sites that we analyze, and also the research of other similar archaeological complexes (including in situ research) belonging to the same cultures and era, from the Moldova region (N-W Romania) took us to the identification of a few geomorphologic factors which constituted as rules of choosing the location for a Cucuteni settlement. The careful analysis of the geomorphometric and geomorphographic altimetry indexes, slope analysis, Sun exposure, water distance, etc. allowed the emit and prove some hypotheses regarding the habitat, settlement size, access roads, defensive system, etc. The present study constitutes into a helping instrument for archaeologists which want to use a scientific method to validate empiric observations taken in situ, and also their processing technique used to obtain sketches, plans and revealing topographic maps for any systematic research of an archaeological site.