Neolithic to modern period palaeogeographic transformations in southern Danube delta and their impact on human settlements in the Enisala-Babadag region

Archaeological data provide evidence of human inhabitation in the Danube Delta since the Early Neolithic with once flourishing human settlements such is the case of Enisala and Babadag settlements. Their remains dating back from Eneolithic (Enisala) or Iron Age (Babadag) or from their revivals in Antiquity and Medieval Age have been found on higher grounds (i.e. hillslope terrace) in the immediate vicinity of Babadag and Razelm lakes and of the reedmarsh developed in-between the lakes. The settlements benefited from their strategical position defined by the intersection of the terrestrial routes linking the northern and southern Dobrudja with the navigation ways to the Black Sea via a shallow but open lagoon prior to Antiquity and later, post 7th c. BC, via Dunavăț branch of the Danube that extended the southern delta by successive open-coast deltaic lobes formation (2600-1300 yrs BP).