Prehistoric Balkans
Encyclopedia
The prehistory
of Southeastern Europe , defined roughly as the territory of the wider Balkans
peninsula (including the territories of the modern countries of Albania
, Croatia
, Serbia
, Macedonia
, Greece
, Bosnia
, Hungary
, Romania
, Bulgaria
, and Moldova
) covers the period from the Upper Paleolithic
, beginning with the presence of Homo sapiens in the area some 44,000 years ago, until the appearance of the first written records in Classical Antiquity
, in Greece
as early as the 8th century BC.
Human prehistory in Southeastern Europe is conventionally divided into smaller periods, such as Upper Paleolithic
, Holocene
Mesolithic
/Epipaleolithic
, Neolithic Revolution
, expansion of Proto-Indo-Europeans
, and Protohistory
. The changes between these are gradual. For example, depending on interpretation, protohistory might or might not include Bronze Age Greece (2800-1200 BC), Minoan
, Mycenaean, Thracian
, Lemnian, and Venetic
cultures. By one interpretation of the historiography criterion, the Southeastern Europe enters protohistory only with Homer
(See also Historicity of the Iliad
, and Geography of the Odyssey
). At any rate, the period ends before Herodotus
in 5th century BC.
onwards, but the number of sites is limited. According to Douglass W. Bailey:
The Palaeolithic period, literally the “Old Stone Age”, is an ancient cultural level of human development characterized by the use of unpolished chipped stone tools. The transition from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic is directly related to the development of behavioural modernity by homonids around 40,000 years BP. To denote the great significance and degree of change, this dramatic shift from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic is sometimes called the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution.
In the late Pleistocene
, various components of the transition–material culture and environmental features (climate, flora, and fauna) indicate continual change, differing from contemporary points in other parts of Europe. The aforementioned aspects leave some doubt that the term Upper Palaeolithic Revolution is appropriate to the Balkans
.
In general, continual evolutionary changes are the first crucial characteristic of the transition to the Upper Palaeolithic in the Balkans
. The notion of the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution that has been developed for core European regions is not applicable to the Balkans
. What is the reason? This particularly significant moment and its origins are defined and enlightened by other characteristics of the transition to upper Old Stone Age. The environment, climate, flora and fauna corroborate the implications.
During the last interglacial period and the most recent glaciation of the Pleistocene
(from 131,000 till 12,000 BP), Europe was very different from the Balkans
. The glaciations did not affect southeastern Europe to the extent that they did in the northern and central regions. The evidence of forest and steppe indicate the influence was not so drastic; some species of flora and fauna survived only in the Balkans. The Balkans
today still abound in species endemic only to this part of Europe.
The notion of gradual transition (or evolution) best defines Balkan Europe from about 50,000 BP. In this sense, the material culture and natural environment of the Balkans
of the late Pleistocene
and the early Holocene
were distinct from other parts of Europe. Douglass W. Bailey writes in Balkan Prehistory: Exclusion, Incorporation and Identity: “Less dramatic changes to climate, flora and fauna resulted in less dramatic adaptive, or reactive, developments in material culture.”
Thus, in speaking about southeastern Europe, many classic conceptions and systematizations of human development during the Palaeolithic (and then by implication the Mesolithic
) should not be considered correct in all cases. In this regard, the absence of Upper Palaeolithic cave art in the Balkans
does not seem to be surprising. Civilisations develop new and distinctive characteristics as they respond to new challenges in their environment.
), near Anina
, Romania
. Nicknamed "John of Anina
" (Ion din Anina), the remains (the lower jaw) are approximately 42,000 years old.
As Europe’s oldest remains of Homo sapiens, they are likely to represent the first such people to have entered the continent. According to some researchers, the particular interest of the discovery resides in the fact that it presents a mixture of archaic, early modern human and Neanderthal
morphological features, indicating considerable Neanderthal/modern human admixture, which in turn suggests that, upon their arrival in Europe, modern humans met and interbred with Neanderthals. Recent reanalysis of some of these fossils has challenged the view that these remains represent evidence of interbreeding. A second expedition by Erik Trinkaus
and Ricardo Rodrigo, discovered further fragments (for example, a skull dated ~36,000, nicknamed "Vasile").
Two human fossil remains found in the Muierii (Peştera Muierilor
) and the Cioclovina caves in Romania have been radiocarbon dated using the technique of the accelerator mass spectrometry to the age of ~ 30,000 years BP. These are the most ancient dated human fossil remains from Europe, possibly belonging to the upper Paleolithic, the Aurignacian period (see Human fossil bones from the Muierii Cave and the Cioclovina Cave, Romania).
The first skull, scapula and tibia remains were found in 1952 in Baia de Fier
, in the Muierii Cave, Gorj County
in the Oltenia
province, by Constantin Nicolaescu-Plopşor.
In 1941 another skull was found at the Cioclovina Cave near Commune Bosorod
, Hunedoara County
, in Transylvania. The anthropologist, Francisc Rainer, and the geologist, Ioan Simionescu, published a study of this skull.
The physical analysis of these fossils was begun in the summer of the year 2000 by Emilian Alexandrescu, archaeologist at the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology
in Bucharest
, and Agata Olariu, physicist at the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering-Horia Hulubei, Bucharest, where samples were taken. One sample of bone was taken from the skull from Cioclovina; samples were also taken from the scapula and tibia remains from Muierii Cave. The work continued at the University of Lund, AMS group, by Göran Skog, Kristina Stenström and Ragnar Hellborg. The samples of bones were dated by radiocarbon method applied at the AMS system of the Lund University and the results are shown in the analysis bulletin http://tandem.nipne.ro/~agata/dating_bulletin.jpg issued on the date 14 December 2001.
The human fossil remains from Muierii Cave, Baia de Fier, have been dated to 30,150 ± 800 years BP, and the skull from the Cioclovina Cave has been dated to 29,000 ± 700 years BP.
period began at the end of the Pleistocene
epoch 10th millennium BC
and ended with the Neolithic introduction of farming
, the date of which varied in each geographical region. According to Douglass W. Bailey:
The Mesolithic
is the transitional period between the Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gathering existence and the development of farming and pottery production during the Postglacial Neolithic. The duration of the classical Palaeolithic, which lasted until about 10,000 years ago, is applicable to the Balkans. It ended with the Mesolithic
(duration is 2–4 millennia) or, where an early Neolithisation was peculiar to, with the Epipalaeolithic.
Regions with limited glacial impact (e.g. the Balkans), the term Epipalaeolithic is more preferable. Regions that experienced less environmental effects during the last ice age have a much less apparent, straightforward, and occasionally marked by an absence of sites from the Mesolithic
era. See the above Douglass W. Bailey quote.
There is lithic evidence in Serbia
(see Lepenski Vir
), southwestern Romania
, and Montenegro
. At Ostrovul Banului, the Cuina Turcului rock shelter in the Danube Gorges and in the nearby caves of Climente people make relatively advanced bone and lithic tools (i.e. end-scrapers, blade lets, and flakes).
The single site representing materials related to Mesolithic in Bulgaria is Pobiti Kamini. There is no another lithic evidence on the period. There is a 4,000-gap between the latest Upper Palaeolithic material (13,600 BP at Temnta Dupka) and the earliest Neolithic evidence presented at Gulubnik (the beginning of the seventh millennium BCE).
At Odmut in Montenegro there is evidence for human activity in the period. The research of the period was supplemented with Greek Mesolithic
well represented by sites such as Frachthi Cave. The other sites are Theopetra Cave and Sesklo
in Thessaly that represent the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic as well as the early Neolithic
period. Yet southern and coastal sites Greece
, which contained materials from the Mesolithic
are less known.
Activities began to be concentrated around individual sites where people displayed personal and group identities using various decorations: wearing ornaments and painting their bodies with ochre and hematite. As regards the point of identity D. Bailey writes, “Flint-cutting tools as well as time and effort needed to produce such tools testify the expressions of identity and more flexible combinations of materials, which began to be used in the late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic
.”
The aforementioned allows us to speculate whether or not there was a period which could be described as Mesolithic
in southeastern Europe, rather than an extended Upper Palaeolithic. On the other hand, lack of research in a number of regions, and the fact that many of the sites were close to the shore (it is evident that the current sea level is 100 m higher, and a number of sites were covered by water) means that Mesolithic
Balkans could be referred to as Epipalaeolithic) Balkans which would better describe its gradual continuity and poorly-defined development.
The Balkans were the site of major Neolithic cultures, including Vincha, Varna
, Karanovo
, Hamangia
.
The Vinča culture
was an early culture of the Balkans (between the 6th
and the 3rd millennium BC
), stretching around the course of the Danube
in Serbia
, Croatia
, Romania
, Bulgaria
, Montenegro
, Albania
the Republic of Macedonia
, although traces of it can be found all around the Balkans
, parts of Central Europe
and Asia Minor
.
"Kurganization" of the eastern Balkans (and the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture adjacent to the north) during the Eneolithic is associated with a first expansion of Proto-Indo-Europeans
.
The Bronze Age in the Central and Eastern Balkans begins late, around 1800 BC.
The transition to the Iron Age
gradually sets in over the 13th century BC.
The "East Balkan Complex" (Karanovo VII, Ezero culture
) covers all of Thrace
. The Bronze Age cultures of the Central and Western Balkans are less clearly delineated and stretch to Pannonia
, the Carpathians and into Hungary
.
See also Cucuteni-Trypillian culture. From this mix of native neolithic populations and the invading Indo-Europeans, a new ethnos emerged—the Thracians
. See also Thraco-Cimmerian
.
After the period that followed the arrival of the Dorians, known as the Greek Dark Ages
or Submycenaean Period, the classical Greek culture
began to develop in the southern Balkan peninsula, the Aegean islands and the western Asia Minor Greek colonies starting around the 9–8th century (the Geometric Period) and peaking with the 5th century BC Athens democracy.
The Greeks
were the first to establish a system of trade routes in the Balkans and, in order to facilitate trade with the natives between 700 BC and 300 BC, they founded several colonies on the Black Sea
(Pontus Euxinus) coast, Asia Minor, Dalmatia
, Southern Italy (Magna Graecia
) etc.
The other peoples of the Balkans organized themselves in large tribal unions such as the Thracian Odrysian kingdom
in the Eastern Balkans in the 5th century BC, and the Illyrian kingdom in the Western Balkans from the early 4th century.
Other tribal unions existed in Dacia
at least as early as the beginning of the 2nd century BC under King Oroles
. The Illyrian tribes were situated in the area corresponding to today's former Yugoslavia and Albania. The name Illyrii was originally used to refer to a people occupying an area centred on Lake Skadar, situated between Albania and Montenegro (= Illyrians proper).
The term Illyria was subsequently used by the Greeks and Romans as a generic name to refer to different peoples within a well defined but much greater area.
Hellenistic culture spread throughout the Macedonian Empire created by Alexander the Great from the later 4th century BC. By the end of the 4th century BC Greek language and culture were dominant not only in the Balkans but also around the whole Eastern Mediterranean.
By the sixth century BC the first written sources dealing with the territory north of the Danube
appear in Greek sources. By this time the Getae
(and later the Daci) had branched out from the Thracian-speaking populations
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
of Southeastern Europe , defined roughly as the territory of the wider Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
peninsula (including the territories of the modern countries of Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, and Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
) covers the period from the Upper Paleolithic
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...
, beginning with the presence of Homo sapiens in the area some 44,000 years ago, until the appearance of the first written records in Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, in Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
as early as the 8th century BC.
Human prehistory in Southeastern Europe is conventionally divided into smaller periods, such as Upper Paleolithic
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...
, Holocene
Holocene
The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...
Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
/Epipaleolithic
Epipaleolithic
The Epipaleolithic Age was a period in the development of human technology marked by more advanced stone blades and other tools than the earlier Paleolithic age, although still before the development of agriculture in the Neolithic age...
, Neolithic Revolution
Neolithic Revolution
The Neolithic Revolution was the first agricultural revolution. It was the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and settlement. Archaeological data indicates that various forms of plants and animal domestication evolved independently in 6 separate locations worldwide circa...
, expansion of Proto-Indo-Europeans
Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
, and Protohistory
Protohistory
Protohistory refers to a period between prehistory and history, during which a culture or civilization has not yet developed writing, but other cultures have already noted its existence in their own writings...
. The changes between these are gradual. For example, depending on interpretation, protohistory might or might not include Bronze Age Greece (2800-1200 BC), Minoan
Eteocretan language
The Minoan language was spoken in ancient Crete before it was replaced with the language of the mainland; the relationship between Minoan and Greek is unknown. While attempts have been made to connect it to other languages, Minoan must be considered unclassified until a linguistic affiliation can...
, Mycenaean, Thracian
Thracian language
The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times in Southeastern Europe by the Thracians, the northern neighbors of the Ancient Greeks. The Thracian language exhibits satemization: it either belonged to the Satem group of Indo-European languages or it was strongly...
, Lemnian, and Venetic
Venetic language
Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken in ancient times in the North East of Italy and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po River delta and the southern fringe of the Alps....
cultures. By one interpretation of the historiography criterion, the Southeastern Europe enters protohistory only with Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
(See also Historicity of the Iliad
Historicity of the Iliad
The extent of the historical basis of the Iliad has been a topic of scholarly debate in classical studies since the 19th century.While the Age of Enlightenment had rejected the story of the Trojan War as fable, the discoveries made by Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik reopened the question in modern...
, and Geography of the Odyssey
Geography of the Odyssey
Events in the main sequence of the Odyssey take place in the Peloponnese and in what are now called the Ionian Islands . Incidental mentions of Troy and its house Phoenicia, Egypt and Crete hint at geographical knowledge equal to, or perhaps slightly more extensive than that of the Iliad...
). At any rate, the period ends before Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
in 5th century BC.
Balkan Transition to the Upper Palaeolithic
There is evidence of human presence in the Balkans from the Middle PaleolithicMiddle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. The Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age...
onwards, but the number of sites is limited. According to Douglass W. Bailey:
The Palaeolithic period, literally the “Old Stone Age”, is an ancient cultural level of human development characterized by the use of unpolished chipped stone tools. The transition from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic is directly related to the development of behavioural modernity by homonids around 40,000 years BP. To denote the great significance and degree of change, this dramatic shift from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic is sometimes called the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution.
In the late Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
, various components of the transition–material culture and environmental features (climate, flora, and fauna) indicate continual change, differing from contemporary points in other parts of Europe. The aforementioned aspects leave some doubt that the term Upper Palaeolithic Revolution is appropriate to the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
.
In general, continual evolutionary changes are the first crucial characteristic of the transition to the Upper Palaeolithic in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. The notion of the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution that has been developed for core European regions is not applicable to the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. What is the reason? This particularly significant moment and its origins are defined and enlightened by other characteristics of the transition to upper Old Stone Age. The environment, climate, flora and fauna corroborate the implications.
During the last interglacial period and the most recent glaciation of the Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
(from 131,000 till 12,000 BP), Europe was very different from the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. The glaciations did not affect southeastern Europe to the extent that they did in the northern and central regions. The evidence of forest and steppe indicate the influence was not so drastic; some species of flora and fauna survived only in the Balkans. The Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
today still abound in species endemic only to this part of Europe.
The notion of gradual transition (or evolution) best defines Balkan Europe from about 50,000 BP. In this sense, the material culture and natural environment of the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
of the late Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
and the early Holocene
Holocene
The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...
were distinct from other parts of Europe. Douglass W. Bailey writes in Balkan Prehistory: Exclusion, Incorporation and Identity: “Less dramatic changes to climate, flora and fauna resulted in less dramatic adaptive, or reactive, developments in material culture.”
Thus, in speaking about southeastern Europe, many classic conceptions and systematizations of human development during the Palaeolithic (and then by implication the Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
) should not be considered correct in all cases. In this regard, the absence of Upper Palaeolithic cave art in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
does not seem to be surprising. Civilisations develop new and distinctive characteristics as they respond to new challenges in their environment.
Upper Paleolithic
In 2002, the oldest modern human (Homo sapiens sapiens) remains in Europe were discovered in the "Cave With Bones" (Peştera cu OasePestera cu Oase
Peștera cu Oase is a system of 12 karstic galleries and chambers located N. 45° 01’; E. 21° 50’ in southwestern Romania, where the oldest early modern human remains in Europe have been discovered.-Paleoanthropological on-site findings:...
), near Anina
Anina
Anina is a town in southwestern Romania, in Caraş-Severin County, with a population of 10,886 in 2000. The town administers one village, Steierdorf.In 2002, the oldest modern human remains in Europe were discovered in a cave near Anina...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. Nicknamed "John of Anina
John of Anina
In 2002, the oldest modern human remains in Europe were discovered in a cave near Anina, Romania. Nicknamed "Ion din Anina" , his remains are some 40,000 years old....
" (Ion din Anina), the remains (the lower jaw) are approximately 42,000 years old.
As Europe’s oldest remains of Homo sapiens, they are likely to represent the first such people to have entered the continent. According to some researchers, the particular interest of the discovery resides in the fact that it presents a mixture of archaic, early modern human and Neanderthal
Neanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
morphological features, indicating considerable Neanderthal/modern human admixture, which in turn suggests that, upon their arrival in Europe, modern humans met and interbred with Neanderthals. Recent reanalysis of some of these fossils has challenged the view that these remains represent evidence of interbreeding. A second expedition by Erik Trinkaus
Erik Trinkaus
Erik Trinkaus, PhD, is a prominent paleoanthropologist and expert on Neanderthal biology and human evolution. Trinkaus researches the evolution of the species Homo sapiens and recent human diversity, focusing on the paleoanthropology and emergence of late archaic and early modern humans, and the...
and Ricardo Rodrigo, discovered further fragments (for example, a skull dated ~36,000, nicknamed "Vasile").
Two human fossil remains found in the Muierii (Peştera Muierilor
Peştera Muierilor
Peștera Muierilor, or Peștera Muierii , is an elaborate cave system located in the Baia de Fier commune, Gorj County, Romania. It contains abundant cave-bear remains, as well as a human skull. The skull is radiocarbon dated to 30,150 ± 800, indication an absolute age between 40,000 and 30,000 BP....
) and the Cioclovina caves in Romania have been radiocarbon dated using the technique of the accelerator mass spectrometry to the age of ~ 30,000 years BP. These are the most ancient dated human fossil remains from Europe, possibly belonging to the upper Paleolithic, the Aurignacian period (see Human fossil bones from the Muierii Cave and the Cioclovina Cave, Romania).
The first skull, scapula and tibia remains were found in 1952 in Baia de Fier
Baia de Fier
Baia de Fier is a commune in Gorj County, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Baia de Fier and Cernădia.It is a sister city to Boccioleto, Italy since 2007....
, in the Muierii Cave, Gorj County
Gorj County
Gorj is a county of Romania, in Oltenia, with its capital city at Târgu Jiu.- Demographics :In 2002, it had a population of 387,308 and its population density was 69/km².* Romanians – over 98%* Rromas, others.- Geography :...
in the Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
province, by Constantin Nicolaescu-Plopşor.
In 1941 another skull was found at the Cioclovina Cave near Commune Bosorod
Bosorod
Boşorod is a commune in Hunedoara County, Romania. It is composed of nine villages: Alun, Bobaia, Boşorod, Chitid, Cioclovina, Luncani, Prihodişte, Târsa and Ursici.-References:...
, Hunedoara County
Hunedoara County
Hunedoara is a county of Romania, in Transylvania, with its capital city at Deva.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 485,712 and the population density was 69/km².*Romanians - 92%*Hungarians - 5%*Romas - 2%*Germans under 1%....
, in Transylvania. The anthropologist, Francisc Rainer, and the geologist, Ioan Simionescu, published a study of this skull.
The physical analysis of these fossils was begun in the summer of the year 2000 by Emilian Alexandrescu, archaeologist at the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology
Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology
The Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology is an institute of the Romanian Academy, located in Bucharest, Romania and specialized in prehistory, ancient history, classical archeology and medieval history...
in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, and Agata Olariu, physicist at the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering-Horia Hulubei, Bucharest, where samples were taken. One sample of bone was taken from the skull from Cioclovina; samples were also taken from the scapula and tibia remains from Muierii Cave. The work continued at the University of Lund, AMS group, by Göran Skog, Kristina Stenström and Ragnar Hellborg. The samples of bones were dated by radiocarbon method applied at the AMS system of the Lund University and the results are shown in the analysis bulletin http://tandem.nipne.ro/~agata/dating_bulletin.jpg issued on the date 14 December 2001.
The human fossil remains from Muierii Cave, Baia de Fier, have been dated to 30,150 ± 800 years BP, and the skull from the Cioclovina Cave has been dated to 29,000 ± 700 years BP.
Mesolithic
The MesolithicMesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
period began at the end of the Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
epoch 10th millennium BC
10th millennium BC
The 10th millennium BC marks the beginning of the Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic period, which is the first part of the Holocene epoch. Agriculture, based on the cultivation of primitive forms of millet and rice, occurred in Southwest Asia...
and ended with the Neolithic introduction of farming
Neolithic Revolution
The Neolithic Revolution was the first agricultural revolution. It was the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and settlement. Archaeological data indicates that various forms of plants and animal domestication evolved independently in 6 separate locations worldwide circa...
, the date of which varied in each geographical region. According to Douglass W. Bailey:
The Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
is the transitional period between the Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gathering existence and the development of farming and pottery production during the Postglacial Neolithic. The duration of the classical Palaeolithic, which lasted until about 10,000 years ago, is applicable to the Balkans. It ended with the Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
(duration is 2–4 millennia) or, where an early Neolithisation was peculiar to, with the Epipalaeolithic.
Regions with limited glacial impact (e.g. the Balkans), the term Epipalaeolithic is more preferable. Regions that experienced less environmental effects during the last ice age have a much less apparent, straightforward, and occasionally marked by an absence of sites from the Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
era. See the above Douglass W. Bailey quote.
There is lithic evidence in Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
(see Lepenski Vir
Lepenski Vir
Lepenski Vir is an important Mesolithic archaeological site located in Serbia in the central Balkan peninsula. It consists of one large settlement with around ten satellite villages. The evidence suggests the first human presence in the locality around 7000 BC with the culture reaching its peak...
), southwestern Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, and Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
. At Ostrovul Banului, the Cuina Turcului rock shelter in the Danube Gorges and in the nearby caves of Climente people make relatively advanced bone and lithic tools (i.e. end-scrapers, blade lets, and flakes).
The single site representing materials related to Mesolithic in Bulgaria is Pobiti Kamini. There is no another lithic evidence on the period. There is a 4,000-gap between the latest Upper Palaeolithic material (13,600 BP at Temnta Dupka) and the earliest Neolithic evidence presented at Gulubnik (the beginning of the seventh millennium BCE).
At Odmut in Montenegro there is evidence for human activity in the period. The research of the period was supplemented with Greek Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
well represented by sites such as Frachthi Cave. The other sites are Theopetra Cave and Sesklo
Sesklo
Sesklo is a village nearby the city of Volos, in Thessaly , in the prefecture of Magnesia. It is part of the municipality Aisonia...
in Thessaly that represent the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic as well as the early Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
period. Yet southern and coastal sites Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, which contained materials from the Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
are less known.
Activities began to be concentrated around individual sites where people displayed personal and group identities using various decorations: wearing ornaments and painting their bodies with ochre and hematite. As regards the point of identity D. Bailey writes, “Flint-cutting tools as well as time and effort needed to produce such tools testify the expressions of identity and more flexible combinations of materials, which began to be used in the late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
.”
The aforementioned allows us to speculate whether or not there was a period which could be described as Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
in southeastern Europe, rather than an extended Upper Palaeolithic. On the other hand, lack of research in a number of regions, and the fact that many of the sites were close to the shore (it is evident that the current sea level is 100 m higher, and a number of sites were covered by water) means that Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
Balkans could be referred to as Epipalaeolithic) Balkans which would better describe its gradual continuity and poorly-defined development.
Neolithic
Varna culture
The Varna culture belongs to the late Eneolithic of northern Bulgaria. It is conventionally dated between 4400-4100 BC cal, that is, contemporary with Karanovo in the South...
, Karanovo
Karanovo culture
The Karanovo culture is a neolithic culture named for the Bulgarian village of Karanovo . The site at Karanovo itself was a hilltop settlement of 18 buildings, housing some 100 inhabitants....
, Hamangia
Hamangia culture
The Hamangia culture is a Late Neolithic archaeological culture of Dobruja between the Danube and the Black Sea and Muntenia and in the south. It is named after the site of Baia-Hamangia, discovered in 1952 along Lake Golovita....
.
The Vinča culture
Vinca culture
The Vinča culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture in Southeastern Europe, dated to the period 5500–4500 BCE. Named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo, a large tell settlement discovered by Serbian archaeologist Miloje Vasić in 1908, it represents the material remains of a prehistoric society...
was an early culture of the Balkans (between the 6th
6th millennium BC
During the 6th millennium BC, agriculture spread from the Balkans to Italy and Eastern Europe, and also from Mesopotamia to Egypt. World population was essentially stable at approximately 5 million, though some speculate up to 7 million.-Events:...
and the 3rd millennium BC
3rd millennium BC
The 3rd millennium BC spans the Early to Middle Bronze Age.It represents a period of time in which imperialism, or the desire to conquer, grew to prominence, in the city states of the Middle East, but also throughout Eurasia, with Indo-European expansion to Anatolia, Europe and Central Asia. The...
), stretching around the course of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
in Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, although traces of it can be found all around the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, parts of Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
and Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
.
"Kurganization" of the eastern Balkans (and the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture adjacent to the north) during the Eneolithic is associated with a first expansion of Proto-Indo-Europeans
Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
.
- Starčevo-Criş cultureStarcevo-KörösThe Starčevo culture, also called Starčevo–Kőrös–Criş culture, is an archaeological culture of Southeastern Europe, dating to the Neolithic period between c. 6200 and 5200 BCE....
- Dudeşti cultureDudesti cultureThe Dudeşti culture is a farming/herding culture that occupied part of Romania in the 6th millennium BC, typified by semi-subterranean habitations on the edges of low plateaus. This culture contributed to the origin of both the subsequent Hamangia culture and the Boian culture. It was named after...
- Cucuteni-Trypillian culture
- Hamangia cultureHamangia cultureThe Hamangia culture is a Late Neolithic archaeological culture of Dobruja between the Danube and the Black Sea and Muntenia and in the south. It is named after the site of Baia-Hamangia, discovered in 1952 along Lake Golovita....
- Vinča cultureVinca cultureThe Vinča culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture in Southeastern Europe, dated to the period 5500–4500 BCE. Named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo, a large tell settlement discovered by Serbian archaeologist Miloje Vasić in 1908, it represents the material remains of a prehistoric society...
- Varna cultureVarna cultureThe Varna culture belongs to the late Eneolithic of northern Bulgaria. It is conventionally dated between 4400-4100 BC cal, that is, contemporary with Karanovo in the South...
- Tărtăria tabletsTartaria tabletsThe Tărtăria tablets are three tablets, known since the late 19th century excavation at the Neolithic site of Turdaş in Transylvania Romania, by Zsófia Torma, which date to around 5300 BC...
- Indo-EuropeansProto-Indo-EuropeansThe Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age in the Balkans is divided as follows (Boardman p. 166)- Early Bronze Age: 20th to 16th centuries BC
- Middle Bronze Age: 16th to 14th centuries BC
- Late Bronze Age: 14th to 13th centuries BC
The Bronze Age in the Central and Eastern Balkans begins late, around 1800 BC.
The transition to the Iron Age
Bronze Age collapse
The Bronze Age collapse is a transition in southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that some historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive...
gradually sets in over the 13th century BC.
The "East Balkan Complex" (Karanovo VII, Ezero culture
Ezero culture
The Ezero culture, 3300—2700 BC, was a Bronze Age archaeological culture occupying most of present-day Bulgaria. It takes its name from the Tell-settlement of Ezero....
) covers all of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
. The Bronze Age cultures of the Central and Western Balkans are less clearly delineated and stretch to Pannonia
Pannonia
Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
, the Carpathians and into Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
.
See also Cucuteni-Trypillian culture. From this mix of native neolithic populations and the invading Indo-Europeans, a new ethnos emerged—the Thracians
Thracians
The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...
. See also Thraco-Cimmerian
Thraco-Cimmerian
Thraco-Cimmerian is a historiographical and archaeological term, composed of the names of the Thracians and the Cimmerians. It refers to 8th to 7th century BC cultures that are linked in Eastern Central Europe and in the area north of the Black Sea....
.
Iron Age
Greek Dark Ages
The Greek Dark Age or Ages also known as Geometric or Homeric Age are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean Palatial civilization around 1200 BC, to the first signs of the Greek city-states in the 9th...
or Submycenaean Period, the classical Greek culture
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
began to develop in the southern Balkan peninsula, the Aegean islands and the western Asia Minor Greek colonies starting around the 9–8th century (the Geometric Period) and peaking with the 5th century BC Athens democracy.
The Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
were the first to establish a system of trade routes in the Balkans and, in order to facilitate trade with the natives between 700 BC and 300 BC, they founded several colonies on the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
(Pontus Euxinus) coast, Asia Minor, Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
, Southern Italy (Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
) etc.
The other peoples of the Balkans organized themselves in large tribal unions such as the Thracian Odrysian kingdom
Odrysian kingdom
The Odrysian kingdom was a union of Thracian tribes that endured between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC. It consisted largely of present-day Bulgaria, spreading to parts of Northern Dobruja, parts of Northern Greece and modern-day European Turkey...
in the Eastern Balkans in the 5th century BC, and the Illyrian kingdom in the Western Balkans from the early 4th century.
Other tribal unions existed in Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
at least as early as the beginning of the 2nd century BC under King Oroles
Oroles
Oroles was a king of Dacia during the first half of the 2nd century BC.He successfully opposed the Bastarnae, blocking their invasion into Transylvania....
. The Illyrian tribes were situated in the area corresponding to today's former Yugoslavia and Albania. The name Illyrii was originally used to refer to a people occupying an area centred on Lake Skadar, situated between Albania and Montenegro (= Illyrians proper).
The term Illyria was subsequently used by the Greeks and Romans as a generic name to refer to different peoples within a well defined but much greater area.
Hellenistic culture spread throughout the Macedonian Empire created by Alexander the Great from the later 4th century BC. By the end of the 4th century BC Greek language and culture were dominant not only in the Balkans but also around the whole Eastern Mediterranean.
By the sixth century BC the first written sources dealing with the territory north of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
appear in Greek sources. By this time the Getae
Getae
The Getae was the name given by the Greeks to several Thracian tribes that occupied the regions south of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria, and north of the Lower Danube, in Romania...
(and later the Daci) had branched out from the Thracian-speaking populations
See also
- History of EurasiaHistory of EurasiaThe history of Eurasia is the collective history of a continental area with several distinct peripheral coastal regions: the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe, linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe of Central Asia and Eastern Europe...
- History of EuropeHistory of EuropeHistory of Europe describes the history of humans inhabiting the European continent since it was first populated in prehistoric times to present, with the first human settlement between 45,000 and 25,000 BC.-Overview:...
- PrehistoryPrehistoryPrehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
- Prehistoric EuropePrehistoric EuropePrehistoric Europe refers to the prehistorical period of Europe, usually taken to refer to human prehistory since the Lower Paleolithic, but in principle also extending to geological time scale - for which see Geological history of Europe....
- Prehistoric Croatia
- Prehistoric SerbiaPrehistoric SerbiaThe best known cultural archaeological discoveries from the prehistoric period on the territory of modern-day Serbia are the Starčevo and Vinča cultures dating back to 6400-6200BC....
- Timeline of glaciationTimeline of glaciationThere have been five known ice ages in the Earth's history, with the Earth experiencing the Quaternary Ice Age during the present time. Within ice ages, there exist periods of more severe glacial conditions and more temperate referred to as glacial periods and interglacial periods, respectively...
- Stone AgeStone AgeThe Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
- Paleolithic EuropePaleolithic EuropePaleolithic Europe refers to the Paleolithic period of Europe, a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of the first stone tools and which covers roughly 99% of human technological history...
- Mesolithic Europe
- Neolithic EuropeNeolithic EuropeNeolithic Europe refers to a prehistoric period in which Neolithic technology was present in Europe. This corresponds roughly to a time between 7000 BC and c. 1700 BC...
- Bronze Age EuropeBronze Age EuropeThe European Bronze Age is characterized by bronze artifacts and the use of bronze implements. The regional Bronze Age succeeds the Neolithic, it starts with the Aegean Bronze Age 3200 BC...
- Iron Age Europe
- Old European culture
- Paleo-Balkans languages
- Proto-Indo-EuropeansProto-Indo-EuropeansThe Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
- Aegean civilizationAegean civilizationAegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea. There are three distinct but communicating and interacting geographic regions covered by this term: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization...
- Thracian languageThracian languageThe Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times in Southeastern Europe by the Thracians, the northern neighbors of the Ancient Greeks. The Thracian language exhibits satemization: it either belonged to the Satem group of Indo-European languages or it was strongly...
- ThraciaThraciaThracia is a Web-Based computer game created and developed by an exclusively Romanian team, part of Infotrend Consulting, and launched in 2009. At the time, it was the first endeavor of its kind. All browser games were text based, made up mostly of static content...
- DaciaDaciaIn ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
- IllyriaIllyriaIn classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....
External links
- Periodization of Balkan Prehistory ~ 6200 - 1100 BC
- South East Europe pre-history summary to 700BC
- Balkan Prehistory: Exclusion, Incorporation and Identity by Douglass W. Bailey
- The Aegeo-Balkan Prehistory Project Ion din Anina, primul om din Europa on Jurnalul.ro Human fossils set European record on BBC.co.uk Enciclopedia României