Freely available LiDAR-derived digital terrain model (DTM) uncovers the heartland of the Dacian Kingdom

Abstract

Throughout history, the Dacian landscape has aroused the imagination of many people. For decades, researchers have been fascinated by the magnificent structures the Dacians built and how they altered the mountains to their advantage. Dacian sites, despite their grandeur, remain mostly unknown due to their position deep within Romania's vast forests, generally in remote regions and hidden from the naked eye. Ground exploration in densely forested mountain regions is extremely difficult, and even if campaigns of conventional exploration had been undertaken, they would have been insufficient to provide a comprehensive picture of the Dacian world. The lack of high-resolution remote-sensing data for wide areas has made large-scale assessments of the landscape impractical. This is changing, as new large datasets of LiDAR-derived digital terrain models, covering the entire heartland of the Dacian Kingdom, are now freely available. This paper reports on one of the most recent freely available LiDAR-based high-resolution digital terrain models in Romania, its impact on Romanian mountain archaeology, and how this can shape future research directions in understanding the Dacian landscape.