What is the spatial link between the Roman civilisation and cultural landscape in Romania?

Abstract

Exploring the dimensions of landscape history, particularly those reflected in the present spatial reconfiguration, requires the use of models to facilitate its evaluation. Considering heritage as a contemporary production result, in this paper the traces of Roman colonisation in the landscape are apprehended in regard to the present time. More precisely, we focused on the southern Romanian territory which was located at the periphery of the Roman Empire at the time of its maximum extent. Its peculiarity is that, even though it experienced a rather short organisation under the Roman administration, clear spatial traces emerge in the present cultural landscape. The identification of visible landmarks within the landscape was achieved through a combined framework of ancillary documents, cartographic material and archaeological gazetteer data, in an interdisciplinary attempt to produce a spatial correlation between the historical territorial planning and the present landscape. Thus, the most important results of the study include modelling the spatial pattern of Roman continuity in the present landscape. © 2014 © 2014 Alina Elena Huzui.