ABSTRACT
Historical sources give hints of a significant demographic development within the Daco-Getic area, but the pattern of occupation and settlement of the territory is still unclear in many respects. The existence of significant variations within the types of Dacian settlement is generally accepted and in the site-centred tradition great effort has been dedicated to producing typologies of Dacian settlement based on the existing evidence. The typology of settlements currently in wide use in Romanian archaeology (Glodariu 1983, 46-8, followed by the latest studies such as Gheorghiu 2001) excludes all hillforts, which are seen as purely military sites, and, although it takes into consideration other factors, it is clear that local topography is the determining element defining the five identified types of settlement: unenclosed villages and hamlets located along river valleys, on the upper terraces and at the bottom of the hills protected by steep slopes and dominant peaks (recognised to be the most numerous) (Type 1); promontory settlements (Type 2); settlements on islands (Type 3 – though these are less relevant here since none have been identified within the study area); and settlements from the uplands – whether of scattered (Type 4) or compact structure (Type 5). The study by Glodariu was focused primarily on analysis of the architecture rather than of the general settlement pattern, particularly of the higher status settlements which in general have been the focus of most research interest and, as a result, are best known. Yet, the value of his and especially Gheorghiu’s work is that it recognises the importance of setting and topography for settlement location, even when availability of resources is seen only as a secondary concern, priority being given as a general rule to defence. Nonetheless, attributing purely military purpose to hillforts in general (or to stone towers) is an outdated approach. Most of them become foci of more extensive settlement outside and the distinction between hillforts and ‘fortified settlements’ is in most cases insufficient on the basis of the current level of information available. Excluding hillforts, along with the whole of the lowland settlement, makes this model incomplete. Other typologies proposed by Nandris (1976, 732-3) and Lockyear (2004)
are also incomplete or unsatisfactory. Nandris’ typology (sites fortified with
murus dacicus1 placed in strategic locations; domestic scattered settlements ‘well dispersed among gardens and orchards, through partially cleared forest, along ridges or in valleys, or even on small platforms dug on the slopes’; upland dairying and herding sites; sanctuaries and ritual sites; industrial sites with metalworking and pottery activities) makes no mention of settlements located at low-and middle-range altitudes and does not fit the Dacian archaeological evidence other than in the Orastie Mountains. Lockyear (2004) applied a fundamental distinction between various types of settlements based on their defensive enclosure, covering undefended rural settlements (1) sites with non-murus Dacicus defences and fortresses (2) and, in a separate section, settlements in the Orastie Mountains and their associated sites (3) thus recognising the unique character of the Dacian occupation there. Indeed, since the area of Orastie Mountains seems to have been in many respects an exception within the Dacian landscape because it was developed to respond to exceptional activities, the extension of its typology to the rest of the territory would give a seriously distorted view of the Dacian settlement pattern. Nonetheless, it would also be wrong to ignore the settlements of the Orastie Mountains since they were derived from the more general Dacian settlement pattern, but just developed differently. The presence of murus Dacicus enclosures and distinctive architecture as
a means of identifying social status seems so far to have been the only preoccupation with settlement hierarchy. From the social point of view, however, it is important to deepen the analysis by considering settlements in direct relation to the occupants and their way of life, and to link the structure of the micro-(in-site) and macro-(landscape-scale) space to settlement function. The major problem with all the typologies presented above is that they all fail to employ a precise terminology, as ‘settlement’ is employed by Glodariu while ‘site’ is preferred by Nandris despite the fact that these terms are not synonymous. But even the term ‘settlement’ is ambiguous since it can cover a wide typological range. A crucial distinction needs to be made from the start based on the size of the community that needed to be accommodated by each type of site, between nucleated settlements (as sites that hosted several families of more or less equal position on a social macro-scale) and individual settlements (inhabited by one family with or without secondary members or associated individuals dependent on the
leading family). In addition, all of the attempted typologies are products of the site-focused traditional approach to research and as a result they fail to assess how the society as a whole and its diverse spheres of activity functioned within the landscape seen as a taskscape (Ingold 1993). The present analysis aims to explore these issues by addressing the social, economic, religious and administrative status and function of the sites, based on their layout along with their associated finds, but also on their setting both within the natural landscape and in relation to other sites.
