Archaeological evidence for Holocene landslide activity in the Eastern Carpathian lowland Mihai Niculit ¸  a a, * , Mihai Ciprian M  arg  arint a , Michele Santangelo b a Geography Department, Geography and Geology Faculty, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Ias ¸ i, Carol I, 20A, 705505, Ias ¸ i, Romania b Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche e Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica, Via della Madonna Alta, 126, 06128 Perugia, Italy article info Article history: Available online xxx Keywords: Holocene landslides Archaeological settlements Landslide inventory Relative age Lowland Eastern Carpathians abstract Landslides are widespread phenomena that contribute to shape the landscape. Assessing the time sequence of landslide activity during the Holocene can help (i) better frame the present day landslide distribution in the wider context of climate change and (ii) better define landslide hazard to take adequate mitigation measures to preserve the elements at risk such as archaeological heritage and currently used structures and infrastructures. Rigorous image interpretation criteria applied to the interpretation of remote sensing images can be a valuable tool to derive information on landslide spatial and temporal distribution. However, it only allows to broadly estimate the relative age of landslides based on their morphologic signature. In this work, we investigate the topological relations between landslides and archaeological sites for nine selected settlements in the Moldavian Plateau, situated on ridges and hillslopes. Landslides and sites were mapped using high resolution LiDAR DEMs and extensive field validation activities. Landslides were classified as very old (relict), old, and recent, according to their morphologic appearance. We argue the possibility of (i) assigning a relative age to the three main classes of landslides as they appear on the present day topography, and (ii) assessing the landslide activity during the Holocene. Using this information, we set up a model of landslide evolution during the Ho- locene for the lowland of Eastern Carpathians. Based on collected data, we cannot exclude the Pleisto- cene age for some very old landslides, whereas the old and recent landslides appeared during the Holocene. We think this approach can be extended to other archaeological sites of the study area, and to other areas. Furthermore, similar studies can prove useful for landslide hazard analyses, helping to adopt adequate protection and mitigation measures, framed in a climate change scenario. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Landslides are natural phenomena which occur in clusters over space and time (Trauth et al., 2000, 2003; Unkel et al., 2013). The spatial clustering of landslides consists of the appearance of land- slides events around the same slope or catchment, where pre- conditioning, preparatory, and triggering factors are present (P anek, 2015). In particular geological, geomorphological, struc- tural, climatic conditions (e.g., alpine or tropical environments), and following high energy triggers (e.g., Marc and Hovius, 2015) landslide clustering can be particularly emphasized. Furthermore, depending on the intensity of the erosional processes, the climatic zone, and the size of the single landslides, the signature of past slope failures can be visible on the topographic surface over time (McCalpin, 1984; Wieczorek, 1984; Keaton and DeGraff, 1996). P anek (2015) summarize that translational and rotational land- slides have episodic reactivations of up to ~10 4 years, while for earth-flows and debris flows the recurrence interval is of 10 1 e 10 3 years. The same author summarizes that, for arid climates, the landslides signatures can persist for periods of 10 4 e10 6 years, while in humid temperate climates they rarely exceed 10 3 years. In his extensive review on landslide dating methods, P anek (2015) con- cludes that the radiocarbon dating of landslide-dammed lakes proves to be the most precise method for landslide events. Further dating opportunities are provided by evidence of landslides occurring in the Pleistocene, and retained in terrace deposits (Starnberger et al., 2013), whereas morphologic evidences of Ho- locene relict landslides appear all over the world (P anek, 2015). In hilly and mountainous environments, human society has al- ways had to face landslide hazards. In the seven years between * Corresponding author. E-mail address: mihai.niculita@uaic.ro (M. Niculit ¸  a). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.12.048 1040-6182/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. Quaternary International xxx (2016) 1e15 Please cite this article in press as: Niculit ¸  a, M., et al., Archaeological evidence for Holocene landslide activity in the Eastern Carpathian lowland, Quaternary International (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.12.048