Shaping the Landscape in Late Iron Age Europe: The Terraced Mountains of the Dacians

Large-scale landscape transformation in mountainous regions during the Late Iron Age remains insufficiently integrated into broader debates on European urbanism. In southwestern Transylvania, extensive slope terracing came to define the spatial core of the Dacian political centre. This study examines the scale, organization, and social implications of this engineered landscape using high-resolution LiDAR data and spatial modelling. Over 4000 anthropogenic terraces were identified, and their spatial patterning was analysed through Kernel Density Estimation (300 m and 800 m radii) in order to evaluate intensity gradients and territorial articulation. The results indicate compact nuclei of high terrace concentration embedded within a broader, yet continuous, system structured along ridge corridors and circulation routes. The spatial correlation between terrace density and elevated architectural features suggests differentiated building practices and hierarchical organization within a territorially extensive settlement pattern. Rather than representing isolated fortified sites, the Dacian mountain core emerges as an integrated and infrastructurally connected landscape. These findings support the interpretation of the area as a form of Late Iron Age low-density urbanism, in which habitation, mobility, and social differentiation were materially embedded in large-scale topographic modification.