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Geoarchaeological research at the archaeological site of Mǎgura Gorgana should elucidate the environmental setting Neolithic and Copper Age communities were faced with, when they settled along the Lower Danube Valley, Romania. This should enable a better understanding of human-environment interactions, the natural preconditions of a trading network, as well as the living conditions of the human population during this time. To reach this aim numerous corings were conducted in the study area and the sediments were analysed using a multitude of methods, as total element analyses, determination of carbon and nitrogen isotopes, radiocarbon and OSL-dating and microfaunistical analyses. The present study shows how the interpretation of the results applying a multi-proxy and a ‘regionalisation’ approach reveals the existence and the extent of ‘Lake Gorgana’, a vast paleolake that covered nearly the whole floodplain in the study area during a long phase of the Holocene and, in particular, during the settlement period at Mǎgura Gorgana in the 5th millennium BC. These new findings are of great importance for archaeological concerns but the lake sediments even more represent a valuable geoarchive containing information about e.g. changing lake ecology, paleoclimate, and the human footprint with regard to different spatial and temporal scales.

The c. 9m high tell-settlement of Pietrele-Magura Gorgana, situated close to the Danube river, is one of the westernmost sites of the Kodadermen-Gumelnita-Karanovo VI cultural complex that spread over the whole Westpontic region during the 5th millennium BC. Until recently tells were equated with the site when, in fact, they represent only the outstanding part of a far more complex settlement system as we now know from Pietrele thanks to geomagnetic prospections and subsequent excavations. People living on the tell, together with the inhabitants from the flat area around it, formed a vast community that must have had a strong impact on its habitat and, vice-versa, was strongly affected by the immediate surroundings. During the settlement period a lake covered huge parts of the floodplain. It provided not only a considerable part of the diet, but ensured, through the direct access to the main river, continuous and extensive over-regional exchange. Okoli 9 metrov visoka naselbina tipa tell Pietrele-Magura Gorgana se nahaja blizu reke Donave in je ena najbolj zahodnih naselbin kulturnega kompleksa Kodadermen-Gumelnita-Kara-novo VI, ki se je širil čez celotno zahodno pontsko regijo v času 5. tisočletja BC. V preteklosti so tell enačili z naseljem, danes pa zahvaljujoč geomagnetskim preiskavam in kasnejim izkopavanjem na najdišču Pietrele vemo, da sama naselbina tell predstavlja le najbolj izjemen del veliko bolj kompleksnega naselja. Tisti ljudje, ki so živeli na tellu, in tisti, ki so živeli v ravnici okrog tella, so bili skupaj del velike skupnosti, ki je morala imeti močan vpliv na okolje, in na katero je tudi neposredna okolica morala imeti pomemben učinek. V času obstoja te naselbine se je v tej ravnici nahajalo veliko jezero. Le-to je predstavljajo pomemben vir za prehrano takratnih ljudi, prek neposrednega dostopa do glavne reke pa je omogoalo tudi stalno in obsežno menjavo na nadregionalni ravni.