The evolution of the landscape surrounding the Histria fortress has been one of the main objectives of research that started here over a century ago. Situated in a coastal area, not far from the mouths of the Danube, the fortress has undergone fundamental transformations due to the coastline progradation and the alluvium brought by the river and the longshore currents. Several scenarios regarding its appearance have been proposed, incorporating various topographical elements (enclosure walls, necropolis, settlements in the territory, etc.).

Thus, for the one who initiated the systematic excavations at Histria, Vasile Pârvan, the entire fortress was on an island, which later merged with the coastline. Such a theory was replaced after the Second World War by another, much different, based on the so-called Fanagorian regression, which assumes the flourishing of the Histria during a period of Black Sea lowstand (with a few meters below the current level); later, the fortress became partially submerged under the waters of the current Lake Sinoe. Since 2009, in an interdisciplinary team composed of geographers and archaeologists, we have started a project whose preliminary results have led to the hypothesis of the appearance of a tombolo prior to the arrival of the Milesians, which developed during the first millennium BCE between the two nuclei of habitation, the so-called plateau in the western part and the schist rock in the eastern part. In recent years, our methodology included a series of geophysical surveys (i.e. ERT), a network of sediment cores, textural analysis, and absolute dating on several areas near and within the fortress. We aim to decipher local topography in the different historical phases of the fortress.