Preliminary results on sediment and settlement dynamics in the environs of the fortification enclosure Corneşti-Iarcuri, western Romania

Abstract

Cornesti-Iarcuri is the largest known fortification enclosure of prehistoric Europe. The site is located in the Romanian Banat, at the southeastern edge of the Mures alluvial fan (Fig. 1). Four earth filled wooden ramparts with a total length of about 33 km enclose an area of more than 17.2 km². Even today, after centuries of intensive arable farming, these walls represent significant obstacles in the undulating landscape of the Vinga plain. Radiocarbon dates, most recently achieved by ongoing archaeological research date the construction to the Late Bronze Age (Szentmiklosi et al. 2011, Heeb et al. 2008, Micle et al. 2009). The Mures alluvial fan started to develop in the Pliocene and with its extent of about 10.000 km² it is one of the most extensive landscape features of the eastern Pannonian Basin (Urdea et al. 2012). Extensive parts of the fan are covered with Quaternary loess and loess-like deposits. Thick chernozem or chernozem-like soils have developed in these sediments (Borsy 1990).