Florin Gogâltan (Cluj, Romania), Victor Sava (Arad, Romania), Marian A. Lie (Iași, Romania), Alexandra Găvan, Tanja Zerl and Tobias L. Kienlin (Köln, Germany)
The Bronze Age tell/tell-like settlement at Sântana-La nord de oraș is located on the outskirts of the town, 150–200 m north of the old water treatment plant. In 2007, following reports from local residents, reverend Lucian Mercea found a large number of pottery fragments scattered on the surface of the site.
Within the project Living in the Bronze Age Tell Settlements. A Study of Settlement Archaeology at the Eastern Frontier of the Carpathian Basin, funded by the Romanian Ministry of National Education (2013–2016), it was determined that the site is a multi-component settlement, consisting of a tell-like ‘core’ enclosed by one concentric ditch, beyond which extended an outer settlement of about 5 ha size. Surface surveys were also carried out to reconstruct the Middle Bronze Age settlement system in this micro region of Sântana.
New aerial photographs, an archaeological test trench in the central part of the site, and geomagnetic surveys were conducted in the fall of 2023. Partial magnetometer surveys suggest a well-preserved site, consisting of a tell-like core, a circular ditch up to 20 m wide, and 94 houses arranged in rows outside of the ditch. The archaeological test trench revealed the existence of two settlement layers and a stratigraphic accumulation of 1.2–1.3 m thickness. The archaeological material can be assigned to the Cornești-Crvenka ceramic style (c. 1900–1600/1500 BC), characteristic of the Middle Bronze Age in the Banat region and north of the Mureș river.
The main aim of this multi-year project is to investigate the outer settlement of Sântana-La nord de oraș through targeted core drillings in order to establish its stratigraphy, determine the state of preservation of the houses visible in the geophysical site plan, and reconstruct their absolute chronology through the recovery of botanical macro-remains. Cores will be taken from each of the 94 houses identified so far by magnetometer surveys. Sampling of the cores will be carried out in the field, with sediment samples taken from secure stratigraphic units. These samples will later be processed by means of flotation in order to recover short-lived plant remains for radiocarbon dating.
Funding period: 2025–
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