Abstract
This chapter demonstrates the value of analysing a range of remotely sensed imagery in order to study the development of the historic landscape in southern Dobrogea (Romania). The methodology involves integrating within a GIS environment low-altitude oblique aerial photographs, obtained through traditional observer-directed archaeological aerial reconnaissance; medium-altitude historical vertical photographs produced by German, British and American military reconnaissance during the Second World War; and high-altitude declassified US military satellite imagery (corona) from the 1960s. The value of this approach lies not just in that it enables extensive detailed mapping of large archaeological landscapes in Romania for the first time, but also that it allows the recording of previously unrecognised archaeological features now permanently destroyed by modern urban expansion or by industrial and infrastructural development. Various results are presented and illustrated, and some of the problems raised by each method of data acquisition are addressed.
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- 1.
This work began as part of a British Academy-funded research programme Contextualizing change on the Lower Danube: Roman impact on Daco-Getic landscapes under the direction of the first author, mentored by the second. That overarching project sought to study the effect of shifting Roman imperial politics of power, provincial administration and colonisation on shaping the traditional Daco-Getic settlement pattern of the Lower Danube, employing a wide-scale comparative analysis of a representative sample of three landscapes in modern Romania with a similar Daco-Getic late Iron Age ethnic backgrounds, but contrasting experience of Roman contact, namely, southern Dobrogea, southwestern Transylvania (see Oltean 2007) and northern Crişana. The first of these areas has since developed into the primary focus of ongoing research and become a collaborative project with the second author, under the auspices of the ArchaeoLandscapes Europe Project, funded by the European Commission.
The project also involves a number of Romanian collaborators and beneficiaries. These include the National History Museums of Romania (Bucharest) and of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca); the history and archaeology museums in Constanţa and Oradea; the Institute for Cultural Memory (cIMeC-Bucharest); and the Babeş-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca).
- 2.
Mapping of the data from the most recent flights in 2011 is still ongoing.
- 3.
The most extensive coverage was by the Luftwaffe in April and May 1944 (sortie reference numbers: GX 22248, 22249, 22251 and 22252); suitable Allied coverage was restricted to limited areas of the Black Sea coast (sortie reference number: MAPRW 60-PR-460).
- 4.
DZB00402700026H018001 Mission 4027, Frame 18 and DZB00402600042H023001 Mission 4026, Frame 23.
- 5.
Coverages were acquired from the 8th of July 2002 (005677175010_01), two from the 25th of June 2004 (005677173010_01; 005677174010_01; 005677178010_01) and one each from the 18th of July 2004 (005677172010_01) and the 8th of June 2008 (005677176010_01).
- 6.
For example, Sketch of the routes from Kustenjeh to Chernavoda and Rassova with the Karasu Lakes by Capt T. Spratt R.N. C.B. 24 July 1854. Made during a reconnaissance in company with Lieut. Col. the Hon. A. Gordon and Lieut. Col. J. Desaint de l’Etat Major. (G236:4/6) – see http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=G236%3A4%2F6
- 7.
A more detailed study by the first named author will appear shortly in Antiquity.
- 8.
A more detailed analysis of the remains and full reinterpretation of the function and history of these linear barriers, based on the significant new information obtained from historical photography augmented by further field data, is in press (Hanson and Oltean 2012).
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Oltean, I.A., Hanson, W.S. (2013). Integrating Aerial and Satellite Imagery: Discovering Roman Imperial Landscapes in Southern Dobrogea (Romania). In: Hanson, W., Oltean, I. (eds) Archaeology from Historical Aerial and Satellite Archives. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4505-0_18
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