Objectives

The groundbreaking objective (GO) of this project is the reassessment and reinterpretation of extant discussions in the dedicated literature concerning the landscape settling pattern, internal spatial organisation, fortification/delineations works, ritual elements, and the existence of external and liminal habitations in Cucutenian sites, and to advance new hypotheses about these issues on the basis of new case studies, that will provide solid arguments with respect to the origins of the systematic organisation in concentric circles, in the area of present-day northeastern Romania. From to this central objective derive three research directions, converted into specific objectives:
O.1. Establishing the relation between the position of the sites on landforms on the one hand, and the internal organisation of the settlements, on the other;
O.2. Describing the mechanism of spatial occupation inside and outside of the settlements, as well as classifying the main archaeological structures detected (dwellings, household annexes, ditches, pits, ovens and kilns, access ways, buildings of a special nature, etc.);
O.3. Demonstrate the existence of a relation between the type of internal organisation of the Cucutenian sites from the Romanian area, and the mega-sites from the Rep. of Moldova and Ukraine.
The Additional objectives are: to produce a coherently integrated database, obtained by using a variety of prospection techniques, and to demonstrate in practice the effectiveness of an open and integrated model of non-invasive research in studying prehistoric sites in Romania, elaborated and tested in the framework of a research project led by the present project leader.
These specific objectives, with activities grouped into work packages, aim to identify habitation models for the Cucutenian settlements, based on the interdependence relationship between the communities and the environment. Focus will also be put on intra-site analysis, which will provide precious information on a site’s planimetry, fortification elements, surface area, etc. The unified feature of the approach outlined above must be emphasised, particularly on account of the absolute interdependence existing between the specific objectives: they are not random and cannot be interpreted independently from each other, but only fully conjointly.