Martin Fera

Title
Investigating settlement patterns and associated land use in the first millennium BC in Eastern Austria: GIS-based multi scale approaches to remote sensing data

Supervisors
Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Michael Doneus
Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Wolfgang Kainz

Case study
Carnuntum, St. Anna, Purbach, Zillingdorf, Halbturn and surrounding

Summary
The availability of prospection data for large parts of Eastern Austria offers the opportunity to evaluate ways of integrating prospection data on multiple scales in archaeological research. Previous projects using Aerial Archaeology (AA) and Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) in this area have yielded excellent results in the identification of archaeological features and sites and have almost doubled the data basis for further research. While these results incorporate archaeological remains from all periods, this research project will focus on the investigation of Iron Age settlement patterns and associated land use in Eastern Austria, connecting it with other regions in Europe.
On one hand new sites and monuments will be identified, classified an interpreted, on the other hand a methodology for the qualitative and quantitative investigation of known sites will be developed and applied. These results will be put into a wider landscape context leading to a new refined model of Iron Age land use of the research region, to allow a comparison with results from neighbouring regions.
This should lead to a broader understanding of the remnant cultural landscape which can be used for cultural heritage protection and management and enable the dissemination and presentation of images of the past to a broader public.