Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-24T02:30:48.620Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Burial mounds and settlement patterns: a quantitative approach to their identification from the air and interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Ioana A. Oltean
Ioana A. Oltean*
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter EX4 4QE, UK (Email: i.a.oltean@exeter.ac.uk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The author describes a process of systematic integration of aerial and satellite imagery, which has provided a huge increase in the number of known burial mounds in the area where the Danube meets the Black Sea. Careful evaluation of newly acquired and archival imagery from satellites and lower level platforms shows where data is comparable and how visibility varies with imagery type. Excavations to date suggest the majority of the mounds are of Greco-Roman date and associated with the large towns and their road networks. Clusters of barrows exist, hinting at associated settlement aggregation, but a large proportion are single tumuli, raising interesting questions about their social role in this period. Above all, the large numbers revealed by the survey must invite new thoughts on whether, or in what way, the mounds reflect social ranking.

Keywords

RomaniaBulgariaDanubeBlack Seafirst millennium BCGreco-Romanburial moundstumuliaerial archaeologysatellite imagerysurvey
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 335 , March 2013 , pp. 202 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Avram, A. 2006. The territories of Istros and Kallatis, in Guldager Bilde, P. & Stolba, V. F. (ed.) Surveying the Greek chora: Black Sea region in a comparative perspective: 59–80. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Babić, S. 2002. ‘Princely graves’ of the Central Balkans-a critical history of research. European Journal of Archaeology 5(1): 70–88.Google Scholar
Bărbulescu, M. 2001. Viata rurala în Dobrogea Romana (sec. I-III p.Chr) (Bibliotheca Tomitana 3). Constanta: Muzeul de Istorie Nationalâ sî Arheologie.Google Scholar
Batanina, N. S. & Hanks, B. K.. In press. Soviet period air photography and archaeology of the Bronze Age in the southern Urals of Russia, in Hanson, W. S. & Oltean, I. A. (ed.) Archaeology from historical aerial and satellite archives. Dordrecht & London: Springer.Google Scholar
Batty, R. 2007. Rome and the nomads: the Pontic-Danubian realm in antiquity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Comşa, A. 2011. Some human-environmental interactions in necropolises of the Neolithic and Metal Ages on the territory of Romania, in Mills, S. & Mirea, P. (ed.) The lower Danube in prehistory: landscape changes and human-environment interactions. Proceedings of the international conference Alexandria, 3-5 November 2010: 145–50. Bucharest: Renaissance.Google Scholar
Conolly, J. & Lake, M.. 2006. Geographical information systems in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crăciun, C. 2010. Structuri antice descoperite prin fotointerpretarea imaginilor aeriene. Pontica 41: 357–92.Google Scholar
Donnellan, L. 2007. Ethnic identity in the western Black Sea area: the cases of Histria, Kallatis and Apollonia Pontika (7th-4/3rd centuries BC). Talanta Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society 36-37: 189–268.Google Scholar
Gavrilyuk, N.A. & Krapivina, V. V.. 2007. Lower Dniepr hillforts and the influence of Greek culture (2nd century BC-2nd century AD), in Gramenos, D. V. & Petropoulos, E. K. (ed.) Ancient Greek Colonies in the Black Sea 2 (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1675): 563–90.Google Scholar
Godley, A. D. 1920. Herodotus. (Loeb Classical Library) Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Harding, A. 2011. The tumulus in European prehistory: covering the body, housing the soul, in Muller-Celka, S. & Borgna, E. (ed.) Ancestral landscapes: burial mounds in the Copper and Bronze Ages: 21–30. Lyon: Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditeranée.Google Scholar
Houle, J. L. 2010. Emergent complexity on the Mongolian steppe: mobility, territoriality, and the development of early nomadic polities. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Pittsburgh University.Google Scholar
Koryakova, L. & Epimakhov, A. V.. 2007. The Urals and western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lungu, V. 2007. Necropoles Greques du Pont Gauche: Istros, Orgamé, Tomis, Callatis, in Gramenos, D.V. & Petropoulos, E. K. (ed.) Ancient Greek Colonies in the Black Sea 2 (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1675): 337–82.Google Scholar
Michel, J. 1858. Les travaux de défense des Romains dans la Dobroudcha. Mémoires de la Societé Imperiale des Antiquaires de France 25: 215–58.Google Scholar
Morintz, A. S. & Kogalniceanu, R.. 2008. A first step towards the spatial analysis of the Hamangia (Neolithic) necropolis from Cernavoda, Romania. Origini XXX (NS IV): 165–86.Google Scholar
Oltean, I. A. 2007. Dacia: landscape, colonisation, Romanisation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Oltean, I. A. & Abell, L. L.. 2012. High-resolution satellite imagery and the detection of buried archaeological features in ploughed landscapes, in Lasaponara, R. & Masini, N. (ed.) Satellite remote sensing: a new tool for archaeology: 291–305. Dordrecht & London: Springer.Google Scholar
Oltean, I. A. & Hanson, W. S.. 2007. Cropmark formation in ‘difficult’ soils in Romania, in Mills, J. & Palmer, R. (ed.) Populating clay landscapes: 73–87. Stroud: Tempus.Google Scholar
Oltean, I. A. & Hanson, W. S.. In press. Integrating aerial and satellite imagery: discovering Roman imperial landscapes in southern Dobrogea (Romania), in Hanson, W. S. & Oltean, I. A. (ed.) Archaeology from historical aerial and satellite archives. Dordrecht & London: Springer.Google Scholar
Oţa, L. 2007. Busta in Moesia Inferior, in Luca, S. A. (ed.) Funerary practices in Europe, before and after the Roman conquest (3rd century BC-3rd century AD). Proceedings of the 8th International Colloquium of Funerary Archaeology. Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis 6(1): 75–99. Sibiu: Altip.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M. 1999. The archaeology of death and burial. Stroud: Sutton.Google Scholar
Poulter, A. G. 1996. Map 22 Moesia Inferior, in Talbert, R.J.A. (ed.) Barrington atlas of the Greek and Roman world: 333–49. Princeton (NJ) & Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Repertoriul Arheologic National. n.d. Available at http://www.cimec.ro/scripts/ARH/RAn/sel.asp (accessed 30 June 2012).Google Scholar
Roosevelt, C. H. 2006. Tumulus survey and museum research in Lydia, western Turkey: determining Lydian- and Persian-period settlement patterns. Journal of Field Archaeology 31(1): 61–76.Google Scholar
Sîrbu, V. 1993. Credinte sî practici funerare, religioase sî magice în lumea geto-dacilor. Galatî: Porto-Franco.Google Scholar
Šmejda, L. (ed.) 2006. Archaeology of burial mounds. Pilsen: Dryada.Google Scholar
Šmejda, L. & Turek, J. (ed.) 2004. Spatial analysis of funerary areas. Pilsen: Vydavatelstvi a nakladeatelstvi Alecs Cenêk.Google Scholar
Wells, P. S. 2001. Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. 2000. Air photo interpretation for archaeologists. Stroud: Tempus.Google Scholar