With the help of Google Earth, Archaeologists from the University College Dublin have uncovered exciting new evidence of newly-found prehistoric civilization across a gigantic 3,000 square miles over Central Europe.
In a statement to Business Insider, archaeology professor Barry Molloy, who oversees the team involved in the discovery, said that when he and his colleagues realized the sheer density of the "settlement network," they knew that they were about to uncover crucial information that would help them "understand how Bronze Age societies were organized in Europe."
Prior to this development, experts believed that the advanced civilization that existed during the Early to Middle Bronze Age in Central Europe could not have thrived past 1600 BCE as it was consequently abandoned by then.
However, in the study published in the peer-reviewed journal "PLOS ONE" this November, Molloy and his fellow researchers uncovered something that points in the opposite direction of this previous belief, that the civilization not only survived but also developed an intricate network of compact societies.
The Society of the Bronze Age Civilization
Molloy and his colleague's research suggests that the Bronze Age megastructures, also known as "megaforts," decentralized past the 16th century BCE rather than fully disappearing. The network of interconnected settlements that resulted from this decentralization was a less hierarchical society than the one that preceded it, but it did still have established political units.
According to Molloy, they concluded as such due to the "material" that was left by people they believed to have inhabited these settlements. He added that these "mostly metal objects" were mainly found grouped together and in graves. He also said that they also knew from these artifacts that this society was "affluent, well-connected, and innovative."
Molloy continued by explaining that the larger areas had concentric compounds that they believed were a sign of "controlled movement," which meant traffic from outside the site into the inner core areas was restricted. That said, everyone was mostly buried the same way, with a few valuable material objects accompanying the deceased, which could have meant the hierarchy wasn't as strictly observed.
The archaeologists theorized what the different lands in the conglomeration of the settlements were used for. The flatter lands could have been utilized as farmland, while the wetter areas could have been hunting and fishing grounds. Either way, Malloy and his colleagues knew they needed to do more research.
How Google Earth Helped Uncover the Discovery
The researchers found 100 new prehistoric sites within the Pannonian Plain, a region that spans over modern-day Serbia and Hungary, using data obtained from Google Earth and from the satellite Sentinel-2, which belongs to the European Space Agency. Consequently, they dubbed the sites as the "Tisza Site Group" due to it being near the Tisza River.
Unfortunately, modern-day plowing of the area has "destroyed many of the archaeological traces" that can be found in shallow ground, Molloy shared. In turn, this made finding the sites hard, however, Google Earth helped the researchers scan for the 100 locations.
"Once we started out systematically looking for them, there was a real wow factor," Malloy said.
To date, the archaeologists are continuing their excavation of the sites, hoping to learn more about the specific living behaviors that these societies exhibited in their communities' day-to-day lives.
