Adrian Șerbănescu is currently a Research Assistant in the ArchaeoScience Division of the Research Institute of The University of Bucharest (ICUB) and a 3rd year PhD student at the Doctoral School of History, University of Bucharest. Adrian specializes in archaegeophysics, with experience in both commercial and research fields of this domain, using a multitude of geophysical methods and techniques of investigation. He is an alumnus of University of Bucharest, Romania and University of Bradford, UK. His projects imply using varied geophysical investigation methodologies (such as magnetometry, electrical resistance tomography, ground-penetrating radar etc.) on different period sites. Adrian is currently involved in a large multi-disciplinary project at ICUB (in partnership with University of Kiel – Germany) that focuses on studying the Eneolithic landscape of Southern Romania, while his PhD project is also a landscape archaeology project that focuses on rural settlements in the Early Roman period Skythia Minor (today Dobruja – SE Romania). In the future he aims to focus on developing his knowledge in the field of archaeogeophysics but also to use information from arts, humanities and social sciences among others disciplines, for the purpose of interpreting geophysical data and gain a broader perspective in understanding past landscapes.
Geophysical Investigations at Panduru and Beidaud. Two Rural Early Roman Sites in Scythia Minor
As part of the participation at the Spring School a presentation of the current state of investigations at two sites located in the area of influence or hinterland of Histria: Panduru and Beidaud. Both are newly located Early Roman sites (Ist-IInd centuries A.D.) without prior investigations other than identifying the sites through artefact discoveries, mainly pottery and construction materials such as stones belonging to building foundations and roof tiles. Both sites are situated around 25-28 km WNW of Histria and are of interest to the project due to their dating at the beginning of the official Roman rule in Moesia Inferior (where today’s Dobruja was initially incorporated). Only later did it become a separate province under the name of Scythia Minor. The first site, Panduru, has already been investigated in October 2020 and research using non-invasive geophysical methods will be carried out by the time of the Spring School. The second site, Beidaud, has not been investigated so far, but field research using similar methods will be carried out in the month of April 2022. The survey strategy for both sites involves two stages: – first, a geomagnetic survey will aim at delimiting the outline of the settlement and possible buried structures; – the second stage involves high resolution surveys using GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) and also geomagnetic surveys on smaller scale but higher resolution. These investigations will be targeting features already identified during the first stage and will aim at characterising them and detailing the buried structure as close to reality as possible. The presentation thus will focus on the interdisciplinary aspects of desktop research of available data, especially information from the field of aerial archaeology coupled with geophysical results and discuss the possibility and suitability of further invasive investigations. Another aspect that will be discussed is the actual interpretation of the buried structures from an archaeological perspective and the possibility of using tools, ideas, concepts from other disciplines to better understand what they represent.