Long-Term Ecological Dynamics in Extremely Flat Alluvial Landscapes: Exploring Environment-Driven Settlement Decisions on the Great Hungarian Plain from the Neolithic to the Medieval Age

Author(s): Attila Gyucha

Year: 2025

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

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In this paper, we adopt a historical ecological perspective and employ a multidisciplinary methodological approach to explore how various environmental factors and their transformations influenced settlement decisions from prehistoric to recent historic times in extremely flat active alluvial landscapes. Our focus is on a 100 km<sup>2</sup> microregion within the Körös Basin on the Great Hungarian Plain, where we aim to gain insights into the intricate interplay between climate, hydrology, topography, and soil characteristics in shaping settlement dynamics over seven millennia. To achieve this goal, we consult high-resolution geoscientific and archaeological data. Specifically, we incorporate information on climatic changes and use lidar technology to reconstruct the ancient river system, which has undergone significant alterations due to water regulation efforts in recent centuries. This lidar dataset also allows us to analyze the topography of the landscape, where even slight variations in elevation were pivotal in distinguishing between regularly flooded, temporarily inundated, and flood-free zones. Additionally, we use high-resolution coring data to link soil attributes with settlement patterns across time. Finally, archaeological data collected during systematic surface surveys offer insights into how communities, spanning from the Neolithic to the Medieval Ages, adapted to and interacted with their environment in the studied microregion.

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Cite this Record

Long-Term Ecological Dynamics in Extremely Flat Alluvial Landscapes: Exploring Environment-Driven Settlement Decisions on the Great Hungarian Plain from the Neolithic to the Medieval Age. Attila Gyucha. Presented at The 90th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2025 ( tDAR id: 511148)

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Keywords

General
Europe: Eastern Europe • Geoarchaeology • historical ecology • Survey

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53605