Prehistory of Transylvania
Encyclopedia
The Prehistory of Transylvania describes what can be learned about the region known as Transylvania
through archaeology
, anthropology
, comparative linguistics
and other allied sciences.
Transylvania proper is a plateau
or tableland in northwest central Romania
. It is bounded and defined by the Carpathian mountains
to the east and south, and the Apuseni mountains
to the west. As a diverse and relatively protected region, the area has always been rich in wildlife, and remains one of the more ecologically diverse areas in Europe. The mountains contain a large number of caves, which attracted both human and animal residents. The Peştera Urşilor
, the "cave of bears", was home to a large number of cave bear
s (Ursus spelæus) whose remains were discovered when the cave was found by humans in 1975. Other caves in the area sheltered early humans.
Prehistory is the longest period in the history of mankind, developing from times when the writing was still unknown. Chronologically it stretches from the paleolithic
, neolithic
, bronze age
to the iron age
.
, Middle Paleolithic
and Upper Paleolithic
. The chronological frame of the Paleolithic coincides with that of the Pleistocene
(the first period of the Quaternary
), and is marked by four great glaciations, as established in the Alps
(Günz
, Mindel
, Riss and, Würm
).
While an ever increasing amount of data has become available on the evolution of the climate, fauna and vegetation of present day Romania
,there is very little in the fossil record to give researchers an idea of what Paleolithic man in Romania looked like. To date, no human skeletal remains dating from the Low Paleolithic have been found, while the only Middle Paleolithic remains that have been discovered were a number of phalanges unearthed by M. Roska in the Bordu Mare Cave at Ohaba Ponor (county Hunedoara). A skull capsule discovered by Roska in the Cioclovina Cave displays features attributed to Homo sapiens sapiens, and dates back to the Upper Paleolithic as indicated by three flint objects peculiar to the Aurignacian discovered next to them. Likewise, in the Ciurul Mare Cave in the Pǎdurea Craiului Mountains (Transylvania
) speleologists have discovered some distinctively man, woman and child footprints. An anthropological analysis has identified the Cro-Magnon
and even Neanderthal
characteristics in these footprints.
The economy of the Paleolithic communities consisted mainly of the exploitation of the natural resources: picking, fishing and especially hunting were the main pursuits of the diverse human groups. As early as the Lower Paleolithic human groups either hunted or trapped game. We can assume that in Transylvania, alongside mammoths or deer, horses were a fairly important food source, if our dating of the painting on the ceiling of the cave at Cuciulat (county Sǎlaj) is correct.
The Lower Paleolithic in Transylvania, due to the scarce data available, is largely a mystery. If the discovery of an Acheulean lithic item at Căpuşu Mic (county Cluj) and of several Pre-Mousterian lithic items at Tălmaciu (county Sibiu
) are a certain fact, their precise stratigraphic position remains to be established. The same cannot be said about the discoveries in the Ciucului Basin at Sândominic (county Harghita) where we have encountered several tools and a rich fauna in certified stratigraphic positions belonging to the geo-chronological interval covering late Mindel to early Riss.
The Middle Paleolithic – Mousterian
– covers a time period incomparably shorter than that of the prior epoch (c. 100,000 – 33,000/30,000 BP). It is the period set largely in Early Upper Pleistocene, and corresponds within the alpine glacial chronology to the interval covering the late Riss-Würm interglacial, or rather the Lower Würm, through middle Würm, as indicated by the dating of the late Mousterian dwellings in the Gura Cheii Cave – Râşnov (county Braşov) and the Spurcată Cave – Nandru (county Hunedoara).
The Mousterian is closest to the alpine Paleolithic, whose characteristic, too, was the presence of numerous quartzite sliver and chips, with the bones of hunted game outnumbering the tools. Consequently, specialists consider this Mousterian to be an „Eastern Charentian”.
Likewise, North-Western and Northern Transylvania with the settlements at Boineşti (county Satu Mare) and Remetea
(county Maramureş
) has revealed several tools typically Mousterian (flake scrapers, blade scrapers, tanget points etc.), part of which have been included with a later stage of the Mousterian or even with a transition stage to the Upper Paleolithic
, which sporadically was contemporary with the onset of the Aurignacean culture of the Upper Paleolithic.
The process of regional diversification among cultures was accelerated in the Upper Paleolithic through middle to upper Würm. The beginnings of the Upper Paleolithic on the territory of Romania is dated somewhere between 32 000/30 000 – 13 000 BP, corresponding paleoclimatically to the onset of the Arcy oscillation, and is marked by the development of the two great civilizations: the Aurignacian and the Gravettian
both featuring several stages of development as established by stratigraphy
.
The onset of the Aurignacian culture seems to have paralleled the late Mousterian facies in the Carpathian caves, if we accept as valid the C14 dating of level IIb in the cave of Gura Cheii – Râşnov. Northwestern Transylvania is the site where layers of the Middle Aurignacian culture have been identified as signaled by the presence of blade scrapers, refitted core, burin
s. In Banat, the settlements of Tincova, Coşova and Româneşti
-Dumbrăviţa
, have produced flint tools demonstrating that the Aurignician in this area evolved closely with that in Central Europe (group Krems-Dufour). Aurignician items were also found in the caves in the Western Carpathians, the most famous of which is the Cioclovina cave (county Hunedoara
) - the site, at the turn of the 20th century, of the first Paleolithic discoveries in Transylvania.
Eastern Gravettian had a long evolution featuring several stages of development as documented especially by the settlements in Moldova. The Gravettian has left traces in the Ţara Oaşului and Ţara Maramureşului, the sites of microlite
fashioned mainly out of obsidian indicating the connection with the Gravettian in the neighboring regions (Moldavia, South-Carpathian Ukraine, Eastern Slovakia, and Northeastern Hungary).
Late Gravettian covers Banat too, particularly the area of the Porţile de Fier of the Danube, where heads identical to the Laugerie-Basse type heads were discovered in grottos and open air dwellings. Still in Banat, a culture with several stages of development was identified and subsequently named the Quartzite Upper Paleolithic by its discoverer, considered to be synchronous with the local Aurignacian, later the Gravettian, and regarded as a prolongation of the late stages of the Mousterian with quartz and quartzite tools (Eastern Charentian).
. Consequently, this historical period could be associated with the interval 13,000 – 9,500/ 9,000 BP. These communities have continued the lifestyles of the Upper Paleolithic. Due to numerous factors, including changes in the climate, the small groups of hunters-fishermen-pickers innovate on the tool and weapon types – producing, for instance, the microlites (trapeze) – concomitant with keeping the traditional tool types.
The area of Porţile de Fier is settled by a population attributed to the Late Epigravettian or Mediterranean Tardigravettian. The first stage of this period has been made known to us by the discoveries in the Climente II cave (county Mehedinţi), and the second, by those in the shelter under the rocks at Cuina Turcului – Dubova, both of which located in the same limestone massif Ciucaru Mare. The two dwelling levels at Cuina Turcului have produced a large quantity of tools and weapons made of flint in particular, and less so of obsidian, bone and horn, as well as body ornaments (shells and drilled teeth, bone pendants, etc.) The ornaments are often decorated with incised geometrical patterns. The most remarkable is a drilled horse phalange wholly ornamented and most probably representing a female figure.
Besides the animal (castor, boars, mountain goats, etc.), bird and fish remnants, fragments of human skeletons were also found. The Climente II cave has produced a human skeleton set in a crouching position and covered by a thick layer of red ochre, which is attributed to the Tardigravettian dwelling and which predates Level I at Cuina Turcului.
The discoveries in the Clisura area display striking similarities with the industries of the Italian Peninsula - the expression of the migrant human bearers of the Late Epigravettian in the mentioned area.
The Tardenoasian spread in several of the country’s regions (Moldova, Muntenia, Dobrogea), including the mountainous area of Transylvania in the southeast (Cremenea-Sita Buzăului, Costanta-Lădăuţi) and northwest (Ciumeşti-Păşune). In the settlement of Ciumeşti (county Satu Mare), besides the typically central and east European Tardenoisian microlitice tools made of flint and obsidian, some artefacts were found in the form of circular segments and two triangular, in addition to trapezes. The fauna remnants indicate the presence of wild boars and deer.
Some specialists do not exclude further discoveries conducive to the identification of the Late Tardenoisian communities of the north-western Pontic or central European types (of which the settlement at Ciumeşti is one) that could possibly be at a stage of neolithization, albeit incomplete, that is, displaying an incipient productive economy whose grounds were laid by animal domestication and plant cultures.
The Schela Cladovei culture is known through the nine open air settlements in the proximity of the Danube. The lithic utensils come in numerous atypical forms and are fashioned of quartzite and siliceous sandstone while an additional small number are made of flint. The horn tools (agriculture artefacts with one or two handle attachment holes) apparently indicate the debut of plant cultivation. Some of the larger river rocks flattened by water or some of the thicker slabs might have served for grinding. The examination of the fauna indicates an economy based mainly on hunting. The targeted game was deer, roebucks, European bisons, wild boars, hares, wild donkeys, foxes, etc. Furthermore, it would seem that the representatives of this culture domesticated the dog.
Anthropological data are quite consistent. The physical type was evaluated as Oriental Cro-Magnon. The skeletons of the deceased were laid in rectangular holes, some dug in the floor of the dwelling itself. Part of them were laid in a crouching position, part were laid on their backs, together with some of their personal belongings. Child mortality was high while the average life expectancy for adults was 36.2 years. The discovery of some skeletons with arrowhead marks speaks of violent death. Research so far has proved that this culture does not have its roots in the Mediterranean type Tardigravettian but is rather originated by some new migration to the Porţile de Fier region. Likewise, it would seem that at the arrival of the first bearers of the Neolithic civilisation (Precriş culture), the Schela Cladovei culture had come to an end.
was the result of the slow migration of some communities from the south of the Balkan Peninsula (Protoseklo culture from the Thesalo-Macedonean area) who brought along to our territory momentous economic progress. Consequently, the process of neolithisation, which is essentially a shift to plant growing and animal breeding, was not an innovation of the local Mesolithic population but rather the result of the penetration of our territory by communities carrying the Neolithic civilization.
The regular divisions of the Neolithic are: Early Neolithic, Developed Neolithic and Eneolithic. The beginning of the Neolithic epoch on the territory of Romania, as certified by calibrate 14C dates, is somewhere around 6600 BC, and its ending around 3800/3700 BC, no later than 3500 BC.
Early Neolithic (c. 6600 – 5500 BC) features two cultural layers, genetically linked and with similar physiognomies. The one (layer Gura Baciului - Cârcea/Precriş) is the exclusive result of the migration of a Neolithic population from the South Balkan area, while the other (the Starčevo-Criş culture) reflects the process of adjusting to the local conditions of a South Balkan community, possibly a synthesis with the local Tardenoisian groups.
Layer Gura Baciului – Cârcea, also called the Precriş culture, is a spin-off of a Protosesklo culture group that advanced north and reached the North Danubian region where it founded the first culture of painted pottery in Romania. The small number of sites attributable to this foremost cultural time has not allowed for the route followed by the group to penetrate the Inter-Carpathian area to be firmly established, yet in all likelihood, it was the Oltului Valley.
Based on the stratigraphy in the site of Gura Baciului (county Cluj) and Ocna Sibiului
(county Sibiu) the development of the culture is divided into three major stages.
The settlements are situated on high terraces strung along secondary valleys. The dwellings are most often house in soil, but there are also ground level lodgings usually standing on river stone platforms. Pottery (bowls, cups) is refined, with white painted dots or geometrical patterns on red or brown-red background. Concomitant with pottery, plant cultures and animal breeding, the new culture introduces implements of polished stone and the first clay statuettes. The dead are buried on the grounds of the settlements sometimes directly under the lodgings. Gura Baciului is the first site on the territory of Romania attesting incineration as a funerary practice.
Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic plastic art reveals a bipolar system of beliefs: the Great Mother, representing the female principle, and the Bull, representing the male principle. The presence among the findings at Gura Baciului of some anthropomorphic stone heads similar with the famous stone heads of Lepenski Vir
, signal possible contact between the locals, the Mesolithic cultures and the newcomers. Furthermore, the adoption of these alien deities, even if exclusively a plastic substantiation, speaks of a remarkable process of assimilation characteristic of the layer abovementioned.
At Ocna Sibiului, at Level Precriş II, there were found a small conical stone statuette shape representing a couple embracing and a plinth of the same material associated with the figure. On the statue and the plinth several symbols can be distinguished interpreted by the discoverer as ideograms.
The Starčevo-Criş culture, marking the generalisation of the early Neolithic in the Intra-Carpathian territory, has been regarded by some as the prolongation of the Gura Baciului-Cârcea/Precriş culture ignorant of the fact that it is really the result of a new south Balkan migration (the Presesklo culture) arrived in Transylvania via Banat. The Starčevo – Criş culture has a long evolution in four stages.
Dwellings are set up on meadows, terraces, hills and even in caves, wherever the environment is friendly. The dwellings were lowered in the early phases and ground level huts, in the later phases. Asymmetrical recipients, bowls, spherical cups, all of which were made of clay, furnish the interiors of this culture. The lithic utensil inventory includes flint and obsidian microlites, as well as large polished stone axes of the Walzenbiele type. It is now, too, that the first small copper items occur sporadically. The pintaderas decorated with geometrical patterns as well as the Spondylus and Tridacna shells testify to possible connections with Eastern Mediterranean regions. Burials were preformed both inside and among the dwellings. Anthropological analyses have revealed a major Mediterranean component advocating the southern origins of this population.
The developed Neolithic (c. 5500 – 4000 BC) covers the interval between the last phase of the Starčevo – Criş culture and the beginnings of the Petreşti culture, the period including what has long been known as middle and late Neolithic.
The developed Neolithic is marked by the migration of some new groups of populations whose point of departure was the south of the Balkan Peninsula, as part of the groups of culture with polished black pottery. These same groups have created the Vinča culture (more commonly divided into four main phases: A, B, C and D) whose beginning is synchronous with the final phase of the Sesklo culture (Greece) occupying Banat and most of Transylvania. In about the same period, the north-east of Transylvania was penetrated by several groups of bearers of the linear and musical note pottery culture.
The Vinča culture in Romania comes in many forms depending on the local background against which it developed (the Starčevo-Criş culture and the linear pottery) and the intensity of the southern pulsation. The synthesis of the above mentioned elements gave birth to numerous related regional elements, so that when referring to the Transylvania territory specialists do not speak of a Vinča culture per se rather than of the Banat culture, the Bucovăţ group, the Pişcolţ group, the Turdaş culture, the Cluj-Cheile–Turzii-Lumea Nouă-Iclod complex, the Iclod group. A general characteristic of these groups is the black polished pottery (cups, bowls, lids, etc.). The decorations are at variance incised and impressed (bands filled in with stripes, in particular) in addition to displaying fine grooves. The statuettes feature oblong heads (possibly indicating a mask), cross-like bodies, and are often decorated with spiral winding patterns.
In Banat, with the end of the Vinča A2 stage there emerges the Banat culture with several distinctive regional peculiarities (groups Bucovăţ and Parţa). The Parţa settlement, thoroughly researched, demonstrates that the culture reached a high level of civilization as signaled by the one storey buildings and by a complex spiritual life partly decoded by the components of the great sanctuary studied here. The cult edifice (maximum dimensions of 12, 6x7m), with two stages of construction, had two chambers, the one to the east, the other to the west, separated by an altar table and then a wall. The west chamber served to deposit the daily offerings. In the foundation of the south entrance to this chamber was laid a zoomorphic idol and a tiny vessel. The east chamber served for the initiation ceremonies. Religious centers of this type through their prestige and grandeur most certainly congregated the population of an extended area.
The charred seeds found in the Liubcova settlement indicate that several cereals were grown. Wheat prevailed, particularly the Triticum dicoccum species, as well as the Triticum monococcum and Triticum aestivus species in proportion of approx. 10%. Likewise, we should signal the first occurrence on the territory of Romania of the Hordeum vulgare barley. Also present are such leguminous plants as lentil and vetch. Of paramount interest is that wheat was harvested, as discovered in a settlement south of the Carpathians (Teiu, the Gumelniţa culture), and was possibly used, if partially only, in other areas, too. The wheat was harvested by pulling out, then was sheaved and tied with switch, vine shoots or ivy. Once carried to the settlement, the grains were beaten off the ears.
The Vinča communities that have advanced on the middle course of the river Mureş, under the influence of the Starčevo-Criş traditions and the elements of the linear pottery, created a new cultural synthesis called the Turdaş culture. The occurrence of signs incised on the bottom of several vessels, particularly on those at Turdaş (county Hunedoara), often regarded as the potter’s mark, more recently have been considered by some researchers as early attempts at recording dates graphically. That things might stand this way is demonstrated, apparently, by the baked clay tablets covered with incised pictographic patterns at Tărtăria (county Alba), discovered, according to N. Vlassa, in a ritual hole in the ground next to clay and alabaster idols and a fragment of an anchor, all of which have triggered hot debate over the stratigraphy and chronology of the settlement.
The preservation by some Starčevo-Criş communities of painted pottery, in addition to the Vinča elements, engendered in the area of the eastern arch of the Western Carpathians the Cluj-Cheile–Turzii-Lumea Nouă-Iclod cultural complex. This complex represents the substratum for the emergence of the Pereşti culture. Long term research at Iclod has demonstrated that this station possessed a complex fortification system built during the Iclod I phase, still in use for some time in the Iclod II phase, eventually abandoned when the settlement expanded. It is in the same spot that research has been carried in two inhumation necropoles where the dead were laid on their backs hands across their chests or abdomens or along their bodies; the bodies were oriented east-west, their heads facing east. The inventory consists in vessels (cylindrical, painted bowls, S profile pots), ochre, stone utensils, ornaments and animal offerings.
The Eneolithic (c. 4600/4500 – 3800/3700 BC) is characterized besides the presence of stone, bone, horn and baked clay utensils by an ever increasing number of copper items. It marks the first production of heavy copper tools moulds, (axes – chisels and axes) closely bound to the exploitation of the copper deposits in Transylvania. Likewise, gold is used for ornaments and the fashioning of such idols as those at Moigrad in the Bodrogkeresztúr /Gorneşti culture. In turn, the craft of pottery reaches a peak as attested by the great number of exquisitely decorated pots discovered in the Eneolithic strata.
The cultures typical for this period are Cucuteni-Ariuşd, Petreşti, Tiszapolgár/Româneşti and Bodrogkeresztúr/Gorneşti. The first two cultures are part of the great group of Eneolithic cultures with pottery painted in bi- and tri-chromatic patterns.
In the eastern territory of Transylvania, at Ariuşd (county Covasna), the first systematic excavations were deployed in what regards the neo-Eneolithic epoch in Romania. The material discovered has been integrated in the greater painted pottery complex Cucuteni-Ariuşd-Tripolie whose development is staked out by three phases (A, AB and B).
The Petreşti culture, whose evolution displays three phases (A, A-B and B), diffused across almost all of Transylvania, is regarded as local in origins by some specialists, as a migration originating from the southern areas of the Balkans, by others. It is primarily known by its painted decoration – patterns painted in red, brown-red, later brown, on a brick-red background, which testifies to the high standard of civilization of the bearers of this culture. The ornamental motifs consist in bands, rhombs, squares, spirals and windings. The typical forms are bowls, tureens, high stands. Plastic art is fairly scarce and so are brass items.
The end of this culture has been associated with the penetration of central Transylvania by the bearers of the Decea Mureşului culture/horizon and the Bodrogkeresztúr /Gorneşti culture.
The graves at Decea Mureşului, according to some, are a continuation of the rituals of Iclod, whereas according to others, they are the hard proof of the penetration of central Transylvania by a north-Pontic population. The presence of red ochre scattered over the skeletons or laid at their feet in the form of little balls, as well as other ritual elements find better analogies, however, in the necroplis at Mariopol in south Ukraine.
The Bodrogkeresztúr /Gorneşti culture, characterized by the occurrence of the so-called high-necked milk pots with two small protuberances pulled at the margin and drilled vertically, is a continuation of the Tiszapolgár/Româneşti (featuring recipients with bird bill protuberances and decorated with step or nettle incisions), in turn descended from the Tisa culture in the developed Neolithic period.
The settlements of the neo-Eneolithic cultures were located on the low or high river terraces, on hilltops or hillspurs and consisted in several dwellings whose positions sometimes observed particular rules. Recent research has had a tendency of focusing on the defense systems (ditches and scarps) of these sites. The culture strata are thick and superposed forming at times regular tells.
The dwellings of this period are of several types. The earth houses displayed an oval shaped hole, with a maximum of 5–6 m and a minimum of 3 m in diameter. On one of the margins a simple fireplace was built out of a smoothed layer of clay. The thatched roof was conical or elongated and was supported by a trestle. The one room rectangular surface dwellings are also documented as dating back to the beginning of the Neolithic. They had wattle walls pasted with clay mixed with straw. The roof was double sloping, and the floor was made of trodden clay. The Cucuteni
dwellings in south-east Transylvania are spacious (40-100 m2 and over), often have a platform and are divided into two or more rooms.
Neo-Eneolithic sculpture is represented by cultic figures, idols, and talismans fashioned out of bone, stone or clay. These are human or animal representations conveyed by stylized or exacerbated particular body parts. Among the thousand anthropomorphous statues discovered, the female ones, symbols of fertility and fecundity, prevail by far.
Copper was first used for fashioning small implements or ornaments (needles, awls, fishing hooks, pendants, etc.), while gold was used solely for aesthetic and decorative purposes. For a long time the items were produced in the technique of hammering, for the technique of casting mould as well as that of „cire perdu” emerged much later. Although we hold no proof of the provenance of the first metal items they are admittedly local rather than import products. That does not necessarily contend that metallurgy was the invention of the local population, for it quite possibly might have been introduced as a result of the contacts with regions where metal processing had started earlier on (the East or Caucasus).
The Eneolithic marked a notable advancement in the development of metallurgy. Throughout this period copper artifacts are present in the settlements, in grave inventories or even in deposits (assemblies of whole or fragmentary objects concentrated in one, usually isolated, place). This period also marks a high incidence in flat axes, pins, simple or multi-spiral bracelets or necklaces. The most complex of all Eneolithic achievements is axe. These weapon-implements are bound to the late phases of the Cucuteni, Decea Mureşului and Bodrogkeresztúr/Gorneşti cultures.
The gold Eneolithic items, outnumbered by the copper, actually constitute the beginnings of goldsmithing in the Transylvanian lands. We cannot end this chapter without mentioning the great gold pendant in the thesaurus of Moigrad (county Sălaj), which is 30 cm in height and weighs 750g.
We know relatively little about the racial types of the Transylvanian Neolithic population. The area of some of the cultures, for instance Cucuteni, lack funeral finds, for they are the expression of ritual practices that elude archeological methods. The few anthropological data available (Gura Baciului, Iclod) evoke Mediterranean type physical features.
The role of the invasion of the shepherd tribes coming from the north-Pontic (supposedly Indo-European kinship) bringing to an end the Eneolithic culture of sedentary farmers represents one of the hotly debated issues among specialists in the prehistory of south-eastern Europe. What yesterday might have seemed exclusively a migration of shepherd tribes, today can be understood as a socio-economical transformation of the local population, its adaptation to the new environment, to the evolution of society (the increasing role of the animal breeders and shepherds, the development of metallurgy, more mobility, the increasing military role of the elites, changes in the belief systems, etc.).
In conclusion, the archeological data available present the Eneolithic as a period of stability in which the sedentary populations created some of the most spectacular civilizations within the European area.
For a long time the Bronze Age was divided into four periods, but the archeological facts have imposed in the last decades the use of a three-part system: Early, Middle and Late Bronze. In absolute chronology it can be admitted that this historical period covers most of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.
The first stage of Early Bronze is a genuine cultural mosaic juxtaposing transitory civilizations with those typical for the Bronze Age. For the first, the most typical is the Baden – Coţofeni cultural block, which perpetuated in many aspects a transitory lifestyle, but evolved in parallel to the pre-Schneckenberg and Schneckenberg civilisations, which were more dynamic in taking over the products of the Aegean-Anatolian Early Bronze. We consider that one can no longer speak of Eneolithic or neo-Eneolithic cultures as defined by this historical period, for the changes occurring in the social structure are radical. Let us mention the rise in status of the chieftains marked by the erection of tumulus funeral monuments, the different type of metallurgy, the different type of economy based on marked mobility as signaled by the impressive number of settlements belonging to the Coţofeni culture.
During the second stage, in the center of Transylvania there develops a cultural group bearing the name of the locality of Copăceni (county Cluj), who favored the locations afforded by the elevated sites in the eastern, probably western too, arch of the Western Carpathians and the upper basin of the Someş rivers. The main pursuits are agriculture, animal breeding and ore extraction. Theirs are surface dwellings, medium sized (3x4m) with a rectangular layout, and pottery displays mainly high-necked pots with a short bottom portion often decorated with barbotine. Frequently the pots’ margins are thicken and often decorated with rope impressions. The dead are buried in tumuli such as those at Cheile Aiudului, Cheile Turzii or Cheile Turului. The Copăceni group evolves in parallel to the Şoimuş and Jigodin groups, the former in the south-west, and the latter in the south-east Transylvania.
Finally, the third stage is the least known, and is characterized by the use of ceramics with brush decorations and textile impressions.
The non-ferrous metallurgy in Early Bronze Age, given the substantial fall in production as compared to the Eneolithic, should be regarded as undergoing some sort of realignment, repositioning, rather than marking an acute decline. The causes of this phenomenon are multiple and diverse in nature (exhaustion of the usual mineral sources, major technological modifications, perturbing ethnic reshuffling, etc.). It is essential, however, that it is now that the first bronze items (brass alloyed with arsenic, later, tin) emerge. The archeological monuments of this period offer more varied jewelry (hair rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants made in copper, bronze or gold), poniards, flat axes as well as raised margin axes. Yet the most important achievement of the age rests the single-edget axe. Apparently the majority of these products were manufactured in local workshops. The proof is the numerous moulds for casting axes discovered at Leliceni (county Harghita) part of the Jigodin group. Hard to ignore is the often evoked ritual hole at Fântânele, part of the Copăceni group, where were found, among others, fragments of moulds for casting metal items (little chisels, poniards, massif axes), testifying that the level of the Baniabic/Vâlcele (county Cluj) type of axes had most certainly been attained.
The Middle and Late Bronze Age. In what regards the diffusion of the archeological cultures on the lower course of the river Mureş we encounter the Periam-Pecica/Mureş culture, bordered in the south by the Vatina culture and in the north (territories in Hungary and Slovakia included), by the Otomani culture; the Transylvania plateau is occupied by the Wietenberg culture
, which gradually cedes part of its northern area to the Suciu de Sus culture. Al of these cultures largely evolve in synchrony, the more chronologically advanced being evidently the Mureş culture with a late debut in the case of the Suciu de Sus culture. Among the five regional cultural groups, the Wietenberg and Otomani cultures occupy a special position. Their division into periods as accounted for by the stratigraphy of the sites at Derşida (county Sălaj) and Otomani (county Bihor) represents, in addition to that of Sărata Monteoru in Muntenia, the pillars of the Romanian Bronze chronology.
The late period of the Bronze Age brings to Transylvania a marked process of cultural uniformity, whose direct manifestation is the local variety of the Noua culture. It is now, too, that the Lăpuş groups spins off the Suciu de Sus culture while the western areas are covered by the Cehăluţ and Igriţa groups.
Ceramics is the prehistoric artifact that has been available to us in the greatest of quantities and varieties, while providing the foundation of all of the abovementioned cultural entities. This document most often than not testifies to the prehistoric technique, as well as to the imagination and art of the culture bearers, unveiling the populations’ unimaginable spiritual horizons. Obviously, this is not a static category, but rather it underwent over the years major changes both in form and content. The pattern repertory of all of these cultures is abstract, geometric and, regularly, at the start of their developed stages, it predominantly displays solar symbols dynamically designed (continuous spirals, crosses with spirals etc.) mainly for the Wietenberg, Otomani and Suciu de Sus cultures, with the same symbols realized in static forms (crosses, spiked wheels, rays, etc.) for the other cultures (Vatina, Mureş). Natural elements occur rarely mainly in the figurative art. Most remarkable in this context are the super-elevated handles shaped into ram heads of a large size recipient found south of the Carpathians, at Sărata Monteoru (county Buzău); the motif is resumed in markedly stylized forms, symbolical even (to the extent that an animal was exemplified through a single typical defining element: the ram’s horns, for instance.) on numerous of the pot handles of the Wietenberg culture. It is the same culture that claims two most rare achievements: a fragment of a cult wagon, exquisitely decorated, with both extremities ending in protomes shaped as sheep-goat heads, discovered at Lechinţa de Mureş (county Mureş) and a gold axe displaying a fine engraving of a human silhouette next to a bovine silhouette whose provenance is the thesaurus of Ţufalău (county Covasna).
A close scrutiny of the production technique of the more special, complex, vessels, the perfect duct of some of the complex
decoration patterns, reinforce our belief that the ceramics was produced by members of the community who had specialized in it, which does not exclude the employment of labor from among other social groups, mainly children and adolescents, evidently performing a secondary role. The transport of recipients over long distances in the absence of good roads must have been an equally difficult operation which called for the existence of itinerant craftsmen and/or of special workshops in the proximity of the more important centers.
The partial representations, the schematic physiognomies, as well as the faithful thematic rendering, if rare, all evoke a new symbolic expression that dominated the art of statuettes too. The moulding of the zoomorphic and anthropomorphic statuettes no longer attain the rich realism of the prior epoch, which is explained by the changes occurring in the religious and cult structure of the society. The incised and engraved decorations focus particularly on the details of the costume and the jewelry worn (hair rings, diadems, pendants, necklaces, etc.)
The importance of the settlements, as created and limited human space, for the prehistoric population is graphically suggested by M. Eliade when he equates them with the symbol of the “centre of the world”. We shall encounter in the analyzed cultural area sites evolving from simple groupings of lodges to complex urban facilities with a view to maintaining collective lifestyle quality, ensuring life and goods protection, and meeting special social, economic, defense and cultic needs. The synchronic existence in limited areas of settlements differing in location, size, content and function suggests the existence of site complexes functioning on terms of dependence or complementariness. Thus, there are central sites, with long term developments, the economic, political and religious epicenters of a larger territory (Derşida, Otomani, etc.), but also secondary sites evolving at the level of hamlets or seasonal dwellings (Suatu, Cluj-Napoca, etc.). The Otomani civilization in particular features a marked settlement hierarchy manifested in the ordered positioning of the lodging assemblies, suggesting a pre-urban tendency. For instance, at Otomani – Cetăţuie a circular settlement has been investigated located on a hilltop and enclosed by a ditch and rampart. The lodgings were distributed in two concentric circles around an empty space at the center. The same organizing system is attested at Sălacea, where a megaron-type sanctuary has been researched additionally.
Prior to this century the Intra-Carpathian space has been predominantly a land of farmers, as well as of craftsmen and animal breeders. In settlements belonging to the classical period of the Bronze Age were found charred seeds, numerous farming implements, grinding mills of diverse types all attesting the intensive cultivation of grains. The large scale usage of a primitive type of plough drawn by oxen is signaled by a great number of plough shares made of deer horn. Besides the wheat, millet, barley and rye as made known by several finds from the Bronze Age, a Wietenberg ritual complex researched recently at Cluj-Napoca
produced charred buckwheat, chick-peas and sesame seeds, while the ritual complexes at Oarţa de Sus (county Maramureş) revealed the use of notch weed and sorrel.
Animal economy of the Bronze Age
, with familiar local variations, was based on pig, sheep and goat breeding with a decline in large horned cattle. Thus, the inhabitants of the settlements of the Vatina and Otomani cultures seems to have focused on breeding swine, sheep, goats and on intense hunting; while the Wietenberg and Noua communities the highest incidence seems to have been that of cattle, used both as a food source and for traction, followed by sheep, goats, swine and horses. In the domain of animal breeding, one must remark on the constant presence of horses and their employment for transport and on their role in revolutionizing the means of transportation and communication. It is also worthwhile signaling the emergence and spread of the wagon with big wheels, later with spikes, used as a means of transporting loads, as a warring and hunting vehicle, or to symbolize social status in festive or cultic processions.
The food provided by agriculture and animal breeding was supplemented by hunting and fishing. Their weight within the economy ensemble varied among the communities of the Bronze Age. For instance, at Sărata Monteoru (the Monteoru culture) they represented 8.11% and at Pecica, of the Mureş culture, – 17.95%, in contrast to the area of the Noua culture where the percentage of hunting was, as a rule, much below 1-3%. Deer rests the most prized game in the Bronze Age, followed by the wild boars and roebucks. A bigger and more constant flow of the rivers determined by an increasingly wet climate is attested by the large fish bones found in many Bronze Age settlements.
There are no clear indications as to which of the two pursuits (agriculture-animal breeding) prevailed within the Bronze Age communities, with research revealing that both were being practiced concomitantly within the same area. Against the background of an increase in the population stability, one must remark, however, an alternation between a prevailingly pastoral East and a farm-dominated West.
Due to progress made in shepherding, in agriculture assisted by animal traction, as well as in metallurgy, the economic role of males increased with men acquiring a dominant position within the family and in society.
For the bearers of the Bronze Age cultures, the mountain attractions besides hunting, timber and fruit, were the copper and precious metal ores. Copper, silver and gold have always constituted some of the main assets of the Intra-Carpathian subsoil (by this we refer preponderantly to the Apuseni Mountains as well as to the ores in the Maramureşului Mountains or the copper in the Giurgeului Mountains and Baia de Aramă). Metal outcrops claimed to be sought for by specialists, who most certainly then kept them secret. By washing gravel and/or digging holes and pits for nuggets, the ore seekers covered the demand of the local, prehistoric Europe, and even Mycenaean elites.
Largely, when speaking of prehistoric exploitation of non-ferrous metals in Transylvania one specifies as its unique direct proof the stone axe found in a gallery in Căraci (county Hunedoara). Still, one should not ignore the impressive anthropomorphous statue discovered at Baia de Criş (county Hunedoara) or Ciceu – Mihăieşti (county Bistriţa-Năsăud), which through the implements (pickaxe, basket) whose absolutely sensational analogies were found in the photos of miners taken by B. Roman at the middle of the last century, certifies that the exploitation of the non-ferrous metals was performed underground too. Furthermore, the Naturalhistoriches Museum in Wien preserves two hair rings with the mention Dealul Vulcoi (Roşia Montana), district Câmpeni, region Cluj, while the Museum in Lupşa exhibits a miner’s axe and a club, both having for their provenance the Lupşei valley. All of these discoveries demonstrate the presence of some important prehistoric miner groups in the areas rich in ore of the Apuseni Mountains.
More and more we find traces of the people involved in the bronze-related activities: finite or semi-finite items, moulds, deposits or isolated items. The tracks of quarries and work-sheds are rather frail, firstly, because of subsequent exploitation, secondly, because of far too few exhaustive archeological investigations. Fairly well known is the little workshop for moulding bronze pieces in the Wietenberg settlement at Derşida. The most complete and spectacular data referring to metal processing workshops gathered so far, although partial, come from Palatca (county Cluj), from the Late Bronze Age, when the workshop was in close proximity of the dwelling area. The research has brought to daylight numerous moulds for casting metal items, unfortunately extremely fragmented, the fragment of a bronze cake, rectangular in shape, with curved sides, a bronze anvil, slag, several fragments of hand-mills, burnt out fireplaces and diverse rocks. Space in the workshop was organized in a complex way, depending on the activities deployed (selecting and grinding rocks, cutting and melting cakes, casting and retouching items). The presence at Palatca
of the plano-convex type bronze cakes and, for the first time ever on Romanian territory, of the Egeean type, as well as the probable absence of metal reduction kilns demonstrate that this operation was performed in the extraction areas.
The conversion of minerals to metal by means of fire was a process accompanied by rituals, magic formulas, and chanting to bring about the “birth of the metal.” At the foundation of a kiln at Palatca formed by a burnt out clay fireplace and several slabs of whetstone laid one on top of the other, probably round in shape, a clay vessel had been deposited. Furthermore, in the close proximity of the workshop a large ritual area has been researched. Most interesting are the multiple hypostases in which next to other items (hand-mills, bronze items, ash, coal, etc.) are posited recipients with/of offerings: underneath or on top of the whetstone slabs, head down or head up.
The multitude of the ethnographic data which assimilate the ground with the belly, the mine with the womb, and the ore with the embrio, speaks of the sexuality of the mineral realm, of the blacksmith’s belongings and implements. The production of items is the equivalent of a birth and takes on an obstetrical dimension. The blacksmith
’s implements, too, have a sexual value. The anvils, for instance, are identified with the female principle. Under the circumstances, the closeness between the shape of the orifice for setting in place the anvil at Palatca and the female generating organ is not accidental. We cannot conclude our presentation of some of the main constituents of the workshop at Palatca, their significance included, without mentioning another unique discovery: the meteorite. The meteorites coming from the skies fall on Earth with a celestial sacred charge and are often associated with the blacksmiths’ activity.
The scarcity of settlements with metallurgic activity also hints at the possible existence of itinerant artisans and/or the centralization of the activity. This new development in bronze processing registers a specialization in production by the appearance of prospectors, blacksmiths and merchants, who exported the surplus produce. Through exchange, the Transylvanian and east-Hungarian type axes with spiken discs spread far east to Bug, and to the north, in the Oder and Elba region, Pomerania included, a phenomenon connected with the great amber road and the exploitation of brass and tin in the Elba region. The metal artisans are not in power, but rather work under the control of an elite who had seen the contingencies between metal and wealth, technology, war and even the social and cultic structure.
The first level with gift depositaries consisted in two main themes: the sword and the axe, outlining the role of the two weapons in the Intra-Carpathian warrior. The lance must have been yet another important weapon, but is less of a finding. The characteristics of the period are bronze deposits at Apa, county Satu Mare (two swords, three war axes and a defense bracer), Ighie, county Alba (two axes with spiked discs and four defense bracers) and at Săpânţa, county Maramureş (a spiked disc axe of type A2, exquisitely decorated, older than all the other pieces, spiral bracers, arm bands, and cordiforme pendants). Within the following stage there were produced and stored especially undecorated bronze items (single-edget axe, spiked disc axe), in ever mounting quantities. Many continued in the style of those created prior to them, but there also emerge new types. One should not omit from among the top creations of the Bronze Age metallurgy the Mycenaean type rapiers whose dating is still under debate.
Late Bronze determines a marked increase in metallurgic production based on the discovery of new non-ferrous mineral sources and the adoption of upgraded technology. The eastern experience brought along by the bearers of the Noua culture and the southern one (through Central European connections) implemented by some late derivatives of the Otomani culture, both grafted on the uncontested local experience, make of Transylvania, we think, the most prolific of metallurgic centers in prehistoric Europe. The differences identified between the deposits of the period speak not of unitary series but of types of deposits with a more limited geographic spread. One of them, characterized by the almost exclusive presence of several types of axes, socked axes, bracelets and foot rings, delineates the area of diffusion of the Suciu de Sus culture. The deposits in the area of the post-Otomani groups (Igriţa and Cehăluţ) contain almost exclusively ornament items, mainly pendants and pins. Finally, in central and eastern Transylvania, in the area of the Noua culture, we encounter the third type deposit with the prevailing Transylvanian type of socked axes and the sickle.
Only a small number of bronze items were found in settlements and cemeteries. Most of them have a fortuitous appearance in what we call deposits. Romanian archeology has interpreted their storage as a proof of troubled times, yet today a new interpretation is gaining ground: they are cultic deposits functioning as offerings, or at times, as the result of prestigious inter-community auctions of the “potlatch” type. The arguments in favour are unshakeable: long periods of peaceful development, the location of the deposits (confluence of rivers, lakes, springs, clearings, mild slopes looking east, etc.), the number of items, the arrangements, their manipulations (fired, bent, fragmentation through bending, etc.), etc. Moreover, we do not see the logic of why some imminent military threat should cause the locals to dislodge and bury in the ground their arms.
The multiplication of the offensive, in contrast to the defensive, fighting equipment (swords type Boiu – Sauerbrunn, battle axes with spiked disc, daggers, spearheads, arm bracers, all made of bronze) assembled in deposits or constituting isolated finds, the development of settlements with man-made defense, the existence of distinct warrior graves, gives the impression that the Bronze Age was a warring world. We hold, however, numerous arguments that it was really a matter of parading rather than using force.
The extraordinary non-ferrous mineral wealth of the Intra-Carpathian space has often been remarked upon in the speciality literature. The overwhelming number of finds of copper, bronze, silver and gold products is, we believe, hard to equal in prehistoric Europe. For instance, no other limited prehistoric space is known to have contained two large deposits dating from the same short range of time (Halstatt A1). Uioara de Sus, accidentally found in 1909, assembles over 6 000 items weighing approximately 1 100 kg, while Şpalnaca II 1,000 paces away from the former, in the year 1887, totaling a weight of 1 000 – 1 200 kg, is formed similarly of thousands of items. In addition to Şpalnaca I, the Şpalnaca II was discovered a short distance away in the year 1881 consisting of 120 bronze items, a deposit dated Hallstatt B1.
The native copper ores often occur together with gold and silver deposits. The gold must have been obtained both through the washing gravel method in the valleys rich with such ores, as well as through the exploitation method of the gold ore or the of surface or shallow veins in deep valleys or landslides, etc. There is no doubt that the tools and procedures of washing auriferous gravel did not differ widely from those used throughout the ages to the beginning of the 20th century. A wooden shovel, a vat (a similar clay item was found in one of the tumuli at Lăpuş), a screen, a piece of woolen linen or even a sheep’s wool sufficed. The turnout was a few grams per day for each worker in part.
As shown, Transylvania also was one of the most important European centers of gold and silver extraction and processing. The thesaurus found in 1840 at Ţufalău, county Covasna, in the area of the Wietenberg culture, whose contents and dating has been discussed, speaks clearly of the wealth and refined tastes of a social elite. Kept in a clay pot, the thesaurus contained among others several solid gold axes, ornamental falere with spiral motifs, hair rings, one bracelet and a large gold piece. A great number of gold and silver items (bracelets, inele de buclă, etc.) were found at Oarţa de Sus, with accurate stratigraphy, in a ritual space belonging to the Wietenberg culture. Such thesauruses containing hundreds of pieces weighing several kilograms as those at Sarasău (county Maramureş) or Hinova (county Mehedinţi) are few and likely to represent the community treasure. They are outnumbered by those displaying fewer items which seem to have been the private property of some leaders.
The blacksmiths gave a measure of their talent both in what concerned the ceramic, arm and ornament shapes as well as in ornamentation, which often reaches perfection. It would have been impossible for each community member to fashion his own tools for this required some high qualification, so this proves that within a community the craftsmen carried out a distinct activity. Metal, bone, stone or clay processing were most certainly operations performed by qualified people, who deployed their activity in small or, at variance, large workshops as those at Derşida or Palatca.
There certainly existed many wooden tools or recipients, but they haven’t been preserved. Animal skin processing, too, must have been widespread and served for fashioning clothing items, shields, and harnesses, etc.
The results yielded by archeological investigation in the Bronze Age necropoles reveal the direct proof of funeral practices peculiar to each community. The graves, with variations specific to the different cultural entities, by their design and their contents attest an advanced spiritual culture. Incineration (Wietenberg culture) or inhumation (Noua culture), the placing of more or less offering-items alongside the deceased, all imply abstract thinking and belief in the afterlife.
The information offered exclusively by archeological investigations is far too little and disparate for a complete and detailed reconstruction of the religion, dualistic if any, of the Bronze Age population. The solar symbols dynamic or static in form (continuing spirals, simple crosses or crosses with spirals, spiked wheels, rays, etc.) are so numerous that they could be illustrated in a separate volume, and speak clearly about the prevailing role of this cult.
The cultic practices were performed by the bearers of the Bronze Age in diverse locations: in the mountains, trees, springs, rivers, clearings or even, as noticed, specially assigned places inside the settlements. At Sălacea, county Bihor, in the southern area of the settlement of the Otomaniu culture there was a cultic edifice, a megaron type sanctuary measuring 5.20x8.80m, with a porch with two in antis pillars, a pronaos with an elevated altar and a naos with two fix altars. The solid crust on the altar surface testifies to the rituals involving fire, while the walls nearby were provided with circular orifices (a ventilating system and alternative lighting of the altars depending on sunrise and sunset). On one of them were found 9 clay weights, 3 curved stone knives, one cylindrical clay stand. The other had 9 clay weights in miniature, 3 curved stone knives and one cylindrical stand. The symbolic value of the items and their number speak for themselves. The walls were decorated with plaster work with geometrical motifs (spirals, continuing spirals) randomly painted in white. Close by the entrance an infant grave was researched, possibly partially deposited as an offering. Another founding ritual is encountered in Early Bronze at Copăceni where under the lodge’s floor board were found five human skeletons (one female adult and four fetuses). Judging by their position – the female in an obstetric position with the fetuses around her basin and one between her inferior members – it could very well be a mother and her infants.
All of these practices, judging by the archeological data mentioned before, as well as based on different analogies, were accompanied by offerings, libations, chanting and cultic dancing. Apart from some daily festivals (sawing, picking, reaping, sheep departure or return, etc.) celebrated by each entity in part, there must have been an annual or multi-annual festival of the whole community, or of a part of it. This has been made known to us from the abovementioned research at Oarţa de Sus - Ghiile Botii. The divinities warding this space were in harmony both with the weapons, ornaments or gifts personal or social in nature (grains, plants, food), with the animal, even human, sacrifices, with the ceramics and bone, as well as with gold, silver or bronze. This wide variety of offerings, deposited in the course of grand religious ceremonies, indicate either an all-encompassing deity, or else several deities all worshipped within the same space. It is in the Wietenberg culture area too, at Cluj-Napoca, that the underground deposition of offerings in a ritual hole and their contents (numerous recipients filled with charred seeds) speaks of an agricultural ritual, one which was chtonic, dedicated to a harvest-giving deity ruling fertility. It is sensible that we should be discussing in this case sacred agrarian rituals whose tradition is resumed in the historical epochs too, meant to inaugurate and imprint a rhythm to the agrarian calendar as well as achieve the union between sun and soil through the agrarian ceremonial. The repeated occurrence of the solar motifs covering the walls of the recipients deposited, typically masculine, might be speaking of the joining of the two spheres: earth-sun, female-male, immobile-mobile, thus demonstrating the dualism of creeds in the Bronze Age.
The links between the Carpathian space and the Mediterranean civilizations have often been the issue of debates forwarding quite diverging opinions concerning their dating, direction and weight. One of the main arguments is the bronze rapiers discovered on the territory of Romania. These long thrusting swords (symbols of dignity and power as well as formidable weapons) are obviously local products executed on southern models. The decorating motifs based on spirals and fine windings on bronze or gold weapons, on bone or horn items, near perfection especially in the areas of the Wietenberg and Otomani cultures, even if created independently on Aegean models, can’t be too far removed in time. The glass in the Noua graves at Cluj-Napoca, the Dentalium beads discovered at Derşida in a Wietenberg milieu are, too, of Mediterranean origins. At Oarţa de Sus on the shoulder of one of the cult recipients are symbols in a line that are most certainly epigraphic. Similar images, also bespeaking the connection with southern civilizations, are signaled by the discoveries belonging to the Otomani culture at Barca (Slovakia). Just so one of the bronze cakes at Palatca copies the well-known Aegean model. Rhather difficult to explain are the striking similarities between the Wietenberg ceramics and of the Apennine culture in northern Italy. The assumption of a common generating center made long ago is still standing until final clarification.
At the same time, the metals exploited on the slopes of the eastern arch of the Western Carpathians arrived in different ways, as seen, in distant places in south, west, north or even east Europe; so did the salt Transylvania is so rich in. Just as the obsidian, most probably exploited in the Bükk Mountains (Hungary), is encountered in the Wietenberg cultic complex discovered at Cluj-Napoca. The amber items in the deposit discovered at the Cioclovina cave have for their provenance the Baltic Sea, while the Caucasian influences are indicated by the axe discovered at Larga (county Maramureş).
The marked expansion of the short, medium or long distance (pan European) exchanges in middle and late Bronze Age brought about a growing dependence between the different cultural groups, an acceleration and uniformity in the cultural values and produce, all of which in turn sped up the general development of society and the passage to a new phase in the historical evolution.
The defining phenomenon of the epoch is represented by the use of iron with a paramount impact on mankind’s subsequent evolution. Hence the name assigned to the epoch.
In contrast to the heterogeneity of the preceding ages, the first Iron Age is remarkable for its homogeneity, which is the result of the emergence and generalization of a new culture displaying black ceramics ornamented with grooves. This cultural homogenization in the First Iron Age represents essentially the material proof of the constitution within the Carpathian Danubian space of the early Getae-Dacians, who are culturally distinguishable form the southern Thracians (of close ties) and the other neighboring peoples. That this was, largely speaking, the direction of the evolution and the ethno-historical reality in this space, we are told by the father of history himself, Herodotus: recounting the Persian king Darius’ expedition to the mouth of the Danube in 514 he mentions the Getae too, praising them for their valiance.
Over 600 find-spots are known so far across the territory of Transylvania from the first Iron Age. The majority indicate the existence of settlements covering the stages of this epoch. Among them the more remarkable are the 26 fortifications, some inhabited permanently, others used for refuge and defense in times of peril.
Largely, the fortified settlements and the refuge fortifications were located on elevations difficult to access in the proximity of water courses and fertile areas. Their sizes vary with the chosen location and, undoubtedly, with the size and the possibilities of the communities in the area. For instance, the fortified settlement at Sântana (county Arad) with an area of app. 100 hectares or those at Ciceu-Corabia (county Bistriţa-Nasaud) and Teleac (county Alba), each measuring 30 hectares, count among the largest in Europe. The first Iron Age fortifications are also known in the county of Cluj, in Dej, Huedin and Someşul Rece.
The defense systems surrounding these regular strongholds consisted of ditch, rampart and palisade, the last of which was designed as a wooden wall erected on the ridge of the rampart representing the most important element of the system. Thus designed, the fortifications generally measured 7–8 m in height, but sometimes could reach even 10-12 rendering them difficult to conquer.
As tribal centers, the fortified settlements had multiple functions, the foremost of which was to ensure the defense of the community, hence their military and political role. Moreover, the discovery of metallurgic workshops for manufacturing tools indicates that the settlements also housed qualified craft activities which entailed permanent exchange relations.
The agriculture represented in the first Iron Age the main pursuit which supplied food for the communities. The finding in the settlements of charred seeds indicate the cultivation of wheat, barley, rye, millet, as well hemp for linen, while the large size pots and the storage pits indicate how the harvests were preserved. Likewise, the emergence of the first iron farming implements, scythes, grubbing hoes and other indicate notable progress in the agricultural practice.
The large quantity of bones discovered in the settlements, most originating from domestic animals – cattle, sheep, swine – as well as game - indicate the importance of shepherding supplementing hunting, as well as the importance of meat in the daily diet.
Finally, besides some such crafts as metallurgy which imply a special qualification, within every family members engaged in a series of activities such as weaving, spinning, leather dressing and others as testified by the discovery in the dwellings of spindle, spools, sawing needles, and scrapers for cleaning hide.
The occurrence of decorations on a large number of vessels, the most perishable of categories, as well as on numerous body ornaments (hair pins, fibulae and others) shows that in the first Iron Epoch the artistic phenomenon was manifested especially in decorative art as geometric patterns.
Religion, a permanent presence in the daily life of the prehistoric communities is, too, attested by the findings. Thus, besides the magic practice and the fertility cult of ancient tradition, the depositing of offerings in appropriate ground holes, as well as the representations linked to the Sun cult, foreshadow the two components: chtonian and Urano-solar to become the characteristics of the Geto-Dacian religion in the classical period.
During the first Iron Epoch, the local culture received a number of influences from the neighboring areas. Thus midway through the epoch, on the middle course of the river Mureş there arrive from Banat the elements of a culture called Basarabi. Displaying ceramics with specific decorations (incised and impressed), the culture is assimilated by the autochthonous background.
Subsequently, at the beginning of the late period of this epoch (6th century BC), form the direction of the North-Pontic area comes into Transylvania a group of Scythian-Iranian extraction. This group is attested by a series of inhumation graves with typical inventory: arrow heads, lances called akinakai and animal art representations. Research shows that at about mid-5th century this group, too, disappears through assimilation by the local culture. Actually, the end of the century also marks the first Iron Epoch. During the following centuries the Geto-Dacians will attain a level of development that will lead them to a state-form organization.
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
through archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness....
and other allied sciences.
Transylvania proper is a plateau
Plateau
In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...
or tableland in northwest central 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...
. It is bounded and defined by the Carpathian mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
to the east and south, and the Apuseni mountains
Apuseni Mountains
The Apuseni Mountains is a mountain range in Transylvania, Romania, which belongs to the Western Carpathians, also called Occidentali in Romanian. Their name translates from Romanian as Mountains "of the sunset" i.e. "western". The highest peak is "Cucurbăta Mare" - 1849 metres, also called Bihor...
to the west. As a diverse and relatively protected region, the area has always been rich in wildlife, and remains one of the more ecologically diverse areas in Europe. The mountains contain a large number of caves, which attracted both human and animal residents. The Peştera Urşilor
Pestera Ursilor
Bear Cave , was discovered in 1975, by "Speodava", an amateur speleologist group, and is considered to be an interesting site-seeing location. The cave is located in the western Apuseni Mountains, on the outskirts of Chişcău Village, in Bihor County, Romania....
, the "cave of bears", was home to a large number of cave bear
Cave Bear
The cave bear was a species of bear that lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and became extinct at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum about 27,500 years ago....
s (Ursus spelæus) whose remains were discovered when the cave was found by humans in 1975. Other caves in the area sheltered early humans.
Prehistory is the longest period in the history of mankind, developing from times when the writing was still unknown. Chronologically it stretches from the paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
, 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...
, bronze age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
to the iron age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
.
The Paleolithic
The Paleolithic epoch, the oldest and longest period in the history of mankind, is divided by specialists in to three stages of development: Lower PaleolithicLower Paleolithic
The Lower Paleolithic is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 2.5 million years ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tools by hominids appears in the current archaeological record, until around 300,000 years ago, spanning the...
, Middle Paleolithic
Middle 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...
and 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...
. The chronological frame of the Paleolithic coincides with that 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 ....
(the first period of the Quaternary
Quaternary
The Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS. It follows the Neogene Period, spanning 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present...
), and is marked by four great glaciations, as established in the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
(Günz
Günz
The Günz is a river in Bavaria, Germany, right tributary of the Danube. It is formed near Lauben by the confluence of its two source rivers: the Östliche Günz and the Westliche Günz . It is approx. 90 km long . It flows generally north through the small towns Babenhausen, Deisenhausen,...
, Mindel
Mindel
The Mindel is a river in Bavaria, southern Germany. The Mindel originates west of Kaufbeuren, in the Allgäu region, and flows generally north. It flows into the Danube in Gundremmingen, east of Günzburg. The towns Mindelheim, Burgau and Thannhausen lie along the Mindel.The Mindel gave its name to...
, Riss and, Würm
Würm
The Würm is a river in Bavaria, Germany, right tributary of the Amper. It drains the overflow from Lake Starnberg and flows swiftly through the villages of Gauting, Krailling, Planegg, Gräfelfing and Lochham as well as part of Munich before joining, near Dachau, the Amper, which soon afterwards...
).
While an ever increasing amount of data has become available on the evolution of the climate, fauna and vegetation of present day 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...
,there is very little in the fossil record to give researchers an idea of what Paleolithic man in Romania looked like. To date, no human skeletal remains dating from the Low Paleolithic have been found, while the only Middle Paleolithic remains that have been discovered were a number of phalanges unearthed by M. Roska in the Bordu Mare Cave at Ohaba Ponor (county Hunedoara). A skull capsule discovered by Roska in the Cioclovina Cave displays features attributed to Homo sapiens sapiens, and dates back to the Upper Paleolithic as indicated by three flint objects peculiar to the Aurignacian discovered next to them. Likewise, in the Ciurul Mare Cave in the Pǎdurea Craiului Mountains (Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
) speleologists have discovered some distinctively man, woman and child footprints. An anthropological analysis has identified the Cro-Magnon
Cro-Magnon
The Cro-Magnon were the first early modern humans of the European Upper Paleolithic. The earliest known remains of Cro-Magnon-like humans are radiometrically dated to 35,000 years before present....
and even 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...
characteristics in these footprints.
The economy of the Paleolithic communities consisted mainly of the exploitation of the natural resources: picking, fishing and especially hunting were the main pursuits of the diverse human groups. As early as the Lower Paleolithic human groups either hunted or trapped game. We can assume that in Transylvania, alongside mammoths or deer, horses were a fairly important food source, if our dating of the painting on the ceiling of the cave at Cuciulat (county Sǎlaj) is correct.
The Lower Paleolithic in Transylvania, due to the scarce data available, is largely a mystery. If the discovery of an Acheulean lithic item at Căpuşu Mic (county Cluj) and of several Pre-Mousterian lithic items at Tălmaciu (county Sibiu
Sibiu
Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...
) are a certain fact, their precise stratigraphic position remains to be established. The same cannot be said about the discoveries in the Ciucului Basin at Sândominic (county Harghita) where we have encountered several tools and a rich fauna in certified stratigraphic positions belonging to the geo-chronological interval covering late Mindel to early Riss.
The Middle Paleolithic – Mousterian
Mousterian
Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Homo neanderthalensis and dating to the Middle Paleolithic, the middle part of the Old Stone Age.-Naming:...
– covers a time period incomparably shorter than that of the prior epoch (c. 100,000 – 33,000/30,000 BP). It is the period set largely in Early Upper Pleistocene, and corresponds within the alpine glacial chronology to the interval covering the late Riss-Würm interglacial, or rather the Lower Würm, through middle Würm, as indicated by the dating of the late Mousterian dwellings in the Gura Cheii Cave – Râşnov (county Braşov) and the Spurcată Cave – Nandru (county Hunedoara).
The Mousterian is closest to the alpine Paleolithic, whose characteristic, too, was the presence of numerous quartzite sliver and chips, with the bones of hunted game outnumbering the tools. Consequently, specialists consider this Mousterian to be an „Eastern Charentian”.
Likewise, North-Western and Northern Transylvania with the settlements at Boineşti (county Satu Mare) and Remetea
Remetea
Remetea may refer to several places in Romania:* Remetea, a commune in Bihor County* Remetea, a commune in Harghita County* Remetea, a village in Meteş Commune, Alba County* Remetea, a district in the city of Târgu Mureş, Mureş County...
(county Maramureş
Maramures
Maramureș may refer to the following:*Maramureș, a geographical, historical, and ethno-cultural region in present-day Romania and Ukraine, that occupies the Maramureș Depression and Maramureș Mountains, a mountain range in North East Carpathians...
) has revealed several tools typically Mousterian (flake scrapers, blade scrapers, tanget points etc.), part of which have been included with a later stage of the Mousterian or even with a transition stage to 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...
, which sporadically was contemporary with the onset of the Aurignacean culture of the Upper Paleolithic.
The process of regional diversification among cultures was accelerated in the Upper Paleolithic through middle to upper Würm. The beginnings of the Upper Paleolithic on the territory of Romania is dated somewhere between 32 000/30 000 – 13 000 BP, corresponding paleoclimatically to the onset of the Arcy oscillation, and is marked by the development of the two great civilizations: the Aurignacian and the Gravettian
Gravettian
thumb|right|Burins to the Gravettian culture.The Gravettian toolmaking culture was a specific archaeological industry of the European Upper Palaeolithic era prevalent before the last glacial epoch. It is named after the type site of La Gravette in the Dordogne region of France where its...
both featuring several stages of development as established by stratigraphy
Stratigraphy
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....
.
The onset of the Aurignacian culture seems to have paralleled the late Mousterian facies in the Carpathian caves, if we accept as valid the C14 dating of level IIb in the cave of Gura Cheii – Râşnov. Northwestern Transylvania is the site where layers of the Middle Aurignacian culture have been identified as signaled by the presence of blade scrapers, refitted core, burin
Burin
Burin from the French burin meaning "cold chisel" has two specialised meanings for types of tools in English, one meaning a steel cutting tool which is the essential tool of engraving, and the other, in archaeology, meaning a special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which was probably...
s. In Banat, the settlements of Tincova, Coşova and Româneşti
Româneşti
Româneşti or Romaneşti may refer to several places in Romania:* Româneşti, a commune in Botoşani County* Româneşti, a commune in Iaşi County* Româneşti, a village in Bereşti-Tazlău Commune, Bacău County...
-Dumbrăviţa
Dumbravita
Dumbrăviţa may refer to several places in Romania:* Dumbrăviţa, a commune in Braşov County* Dumbrăviţa, a commune in Maramureş County* Dumbrăviţa, a commune in Timiş County* Dumbrăviţa, a village in Ceru-Băcăinţi Commune, Alba County...
, have produced flint tools demonstrating that the Aurignician in this area evolved closely with that in Central Europe (group Krems-Dufour). Aurignician items were also found in the caves in the Western Carpathians, the most famous of which is the Cioclovina cave (county Hunedoara
Hunedoara
Hunedoara is a city in Hunedoara County, Transylvania, Romania. It is located in southeastern Transylvania near the Poiana Ruscă Mountains, and administers five villages: Boş, Groş, Hăşdat, Peştişu Mare and Răcăştia....
) - the site, at the turn of the 20th century, of the first Paleolithic discoveries in Transylvania.
Eastern Gravettian had a long evolution featuring several stages of development as documented especially by the settlements in Moldova. The Gravettian has left traces in the Ţara Oaşului and Ţara Maramureşului, the sites of microlite
Microlite
Microlite is a pale-yellow, reddish-brown, or black isometric mineral composed of sodium calcium tantalum oxide with a small amount of fluorine 2Ta2O6. Microlite is a mineral in the pyrochlore group that occurs in pegmatites and constitutes an ore of tantalum. It has a Mohs hardness of 5.5 and a...
fashioned mainly out of obsidian indicating the connection with the Gravettian in the neighboring regions (Moldavia, South-Carpathian Ukraine, Eastern Slovakia, and Northeastern Hungary).
Late Gravettian covers Banat too, particularly the area of the Porţile de Fier of the Danube, where heads identical to the Laugerie-Basse type heads were discovered in grottos and open air dwellings. Still in Banat, a culture with several stages of development was identified and subsequently named the Quartzite Upper Paleolithic by its discoverer, considered to be synchronous with the local Aurignacian, later the Gravettian, and regarded as a prolongation of the late stages of the Mousterian with quartz and quartzite tools (Eastern Charentian).
The Epipaleolithic
The populations evolving at the onset of the Bölling oscillation (approximately 12,000 BP) and which have continued to the end of the Preboreal have been generally attributed to the EpipaleolithicEpipaleolithic
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...
. Consequently, this historical period could be associated with the interval 13,000 – 9,500/ 9,000 BP. These communities have continued the lifestyles of the Upper Paleolithic. Due to numerous factors, including changes in the climate, the small groups of hunters-fishermen-pickers innovate on the tool and weapon types – producing, for instance, the microlites (trapeze) – concomitant with keeping the traditional tool types.
The area of Porţile de Fier is settled by a population attributed to the Late Epigravettian or Mediterranean Tardigravettian. The first stage of this period has been made known to us by the discoveries in the Climente II cave (county Mehedinţi), and the second, by those in the shelter under the rocks at Cuina Turcului – Dubova, both of which located in the same limestone massif Ciucaru Mare. The two dwelling levels at Cuina Turcului have produced a large quantity of tools and weapons made of flint in particular, and less so of obsidian, bone and horn, as well as body ornaments (shells and drilled teeth, bone pendants, etc.) The ornaments are often decorated with incised geometrical patterns. The most remarkable is a drilled horse phalange wholly ornamented and most probably representing a female figure.
Besides the animal (castor, boars, mountain goats, etc.), bird and fish remnants, fragments of human skeletons were also found. The Climente II cave has produced a human skeleton set in a crouching position and covered by a thick layer of red ochre, which is attributed to the Tardigravettian dwelling and which predates Level I at Cuina Turcului.
The discoveries in the Clisura area display striking similarities with the industries of the Italian Peninsula - the expression of the migrant human bearers of the Late Epigravettian in the mentioned area.
The Mesolithic
Specialist opinions fix the beginning of the Mesolithic at the end of the Preboreal, its development throughout the Boreal, and its end as late as the beginnings of the Atlantic. Chronologically it can, then, be set between 9,500 / 9,000-7,500 BP. Two cultures are documented on the territory of Romania in this time period: the Tardenoasian and the Schela Cladova types.The Tardenoasian spread in several of the country’s regions (Moldova, Muntenia, Dobrogea), including the mountainous area of Transylvania in the southeast (Cremenea-Sita Buzăului, Costanta-Lădăuţi) and northwest (Ciumeşti-Păşune). In the settlement of Ciumeşti (county Satu Mare), besides the typically central and east European Tardenoisian microlitice tools made of flint and obsidian, some artefacts were found in the form of circular segments and two triangular, in addition to trapezes. The fauna remnants indicate the presence of wild boars and deer.
Some specialists do not exclude further discoveries conducive to the identification of the Late Tardenoisian communities of the north-western Pontic or central European types (of which the settlement at Ciumeşti is one) that could possibly be at a stage of neolithization, albeit incomplete, that is, displaying an incipient productive economy whose grounds were laid by animal domestication and plant cultures.
The Schela Cladovei culture is known through the nine open air settlements in the proximity of the Danube. The lithic utensils come in numerous atypical forms and are fashioned of quartzite and siliceous sandstone while an additional small number are made of flint. The horn tools (agriculture artefacts with one or two handle attachment holes) apparently indicate the debut of plant cultivation. Some of the larger river rocks flattened by water or some of the thicker slabs might have served for grinding. The examination of the fauna indicates an economy based mainly on hunting. The targeted game was deer, roebucks, European bisons, wild boars, hares, wild donkeys, foxes, etc. Furthermore, it would seem that the representatives of this culture domesticated the dog.
Anthropological data are quite consistent. The physical type was evaluated as Oriental Cro-Magnon. The skeletons of the deceased were laid in rectangular holes, some dug in the floor of the dwelling itself. Part of them were laid in a crouching position, part were laid on their backs, together with some of their personal belongings. Child mortality was high while the average life expectancy for adults was 36.2 years. The discovery of some skeletons with arrowhead marks speaks of violent death. Research so far has proved that this culture does not have its roots in the Mediterranean type Tardigravettian but is rather originated by some new migration to the Porţile de Fier region. Likewise, it would seem that at the arrival of the first bearers of the Neolithic civilisation (Precriş culture), the Schela Cladovei culture had come to an end.
The Neolithic
The genesis of the NeolithicNeolithic
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...
was the result of the slow migration of some communities from the south of the Balkan Peninsula (Protoseklo culture from the Thesalo-Macedonean area) who brought along to our territory momentous economic progress. Consequently, the process of neolithisation, which is essentially a shift to plant growing and animal breeding, was not an innovation of the local Mesolithic population but rather the result of the penetration of our territory by communities carrying the Neolithic civilization.
The regular divisions of the Neolithic are: Early Neolithic, Developed Neolithic and Eneolithic. The beginning of the Neolithic epoch on the territory of Romania, as certified by calibrate 14C dates, is somewhere around 6600 BC, and its ending around 3800/3700 BC, no later than 3500 BC.
Early Neolithic (c. 6600 – 5500 BC) features two cultural layers, genetically linked and with similar physiognomies. The one (layer Gura Baciului - Cârcea/Precriş) is the exclusive result of the migration of a Neolithic population from the South Balkan area, while the other (the Starčevo-Criş culture) reflects the process of adjusting to the local conditions of a South Balkan community, possibly a synthesis with the local Tardenoisian groups.
Layer Gura Baciului – Cârcea, also called the Precriş culture, is a spin-off of a Protosesklo culture group that advanced north and reached the North Danubian region where it founded the first culture of painted pottery in Romania. The small number of sites attributable to this foremost cultural time has not allowed for the route followed by the group to penetrate the Inter-Carpathian area to be firmly established, yet in all likelihood, it was the Oltului Valley.
Based on the stratigraphy in the site of Gura Baciului (county Cluj) and Ocna Sibiului
Ocna Sibiului
Ocna Sibiului is a town in the centre of Sibiu County, in southern Transylvania, central Romania, 10 km to the north-west of the county capital Sibiu. The town administers a single village, Topârcea....
(county Sibiu) the development of the culture is divided into three major stages.
The settlements are situated on high terraces strung along secondary valleys. The dwellings are most often house in soil, but there are also ground level lodgings usually standing on river stone platforms. Pottery (bowls, cups) is refined, with white painted dots or geometrical patterns on red or brown-red background. Concomitant with pottery, plant cultures and animal breeding, the new culture introduces implements of polished stone and the first clay statuettes. The dead are buried on the grounds of the settlements sometimes directly under the lodgings. Gura Baciului is the first site on the territory of Romania attesting incineration as a funerary practice.
Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic plastic art reveals a bipolar system of beliefs: the Great Mother, representing the female principle, and the Bull, representing the male principle. The presence among the findings at Gura Baciului of some anthropomorphic stone heads similar with the famous stone heads of 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...
, signal possible contact between the locals, the Mesolithic cultures and the newcomers. Furthermore, the adoption of these alien deities, even if exclusively a plastic substantiation, speaks of a remarkable process of assimilation characteristic of the layer abovementioned.
At Ocna Sibiului, at Level Precriş II, there were found a small conical stone statuette shape representing a couple embracing and a plinth of the same material associated with the figure. On the statue and the plinth several symbols can be distinguished interpreted by the discoverer as ideograms.
The Starčevo-Criş culture, marking the generalisation of the early Neolithic in the Intra-Carpathian territory, has been regarded by some as the prolongation of the Gura Baciului-Cârcea/Precriş culture ignorant of the fact that it is really the result of a new south Balkan migration (the Presesklo culture) arrived in Transylvania via Banat. The Starčevo – Criş culture has a long evolution in four stages.
Dwellings are set up on meadows, terraces, hills and even in caves, wherever the environment is friendly. The dwellings were lowered in the early phases and ground level huts, in the later phases. Asymmetrical recipients, bowls, spherical cups, all of which were made of clay, furnish the interiors of this culture. The lithic utensil inventory includes flint and obsidian microlites, as well as large polished stone axes of the Walzenbiele type. It is now, too, that the first small copper items occur sporadically. The pintaderas decorated with geometrical patterns as well as the Spondylus and Tridacna shells testify to possible connections with Eastern Mediterranean regions. Burials were preformed both inside and among the dwellings. Anthropological analyses have revealed a major Mediterranean component advocating the southern origins of this population.
The developed Neolithic (c. 5500 – 4000 BC) covers the interval between the last phase of the Starčevo – Criş culture and the beginnings of the Petreşti culture, the period including what has long been known as middle and late Neolithic.
The developed Neolithic is marked by the migration of some new groups of populations whose point of departure was the south of the Balkan Peninsula, as part of the groups of culture with polished black pottery. These same groups have created the Vinča culture (more commonly divided into four main phases: A, B, C and D) whose beginning is synchronous with the final phase of the Sesklo culture (Greece) occupying Banat and most of Transylvania. In about the same period, the north-east of Transylvania was penetrated by several groups of bearers of the linear and musical note pottery culture.
The Vinča culture in Romania comes in many forms depending on the local background against which it developed (the Starčevo-Criş culture and the linear pottery) and the intensity of the southern pulsation. The synthesis of the above mentioned elements gave birth to numerous related regional elements, so that when referring to the Transylvania territory specialists do not speak of a Vinča culture per se rather than of the Banat culture, the Bucovăţ group, the Pişcolţ group, the Turdaş culture, the Cluj-Cheile–Turzii-Lumea Nouă-Iclod complex, the Iclod group. A general characteristic of these groups is the black polished pottery (cups, bowls, lids, etc.). The decorations are at variance incised and impressed (bands filled in with stripes, in particular) in addition to displaying fine grooves. The statuettes feature oblong heads (possibly indicating a mask), cross-like bodies, and are often decorated with spiral winding patterns.
In Banat, with the end of the Vinča A2 stage there emerges the Banat culture with several distinctive regional peculiarities (groups Bucovăţ and Parţa). The Parţa settlement, thoroughly researched, demonstrates that the culture reached a high level of civilization as signaled by the one storey buildings and by a complex spiritual life partly decoded by the components of the great sanctuary studied here. The cult edifice (maximum dimensions of 12, 6x7m), with two stages of construction, had two chambers, the one to the east, the other to the west, separated by an altar table and then a wall. The west chamber served to deposit the daily offerings. In the foundation of the south entrance to this chamber was laid a zoomorphic idol and a tiny vessel. The east chamber served for the initiation ceremonies. Religious centers of this type through their prestige and grandeur most certainly congregated the population of an extended area.
The charred seeds found in the Liubcova settlement indicate that several cereals were grown. Wheat prevailed, particularly the Triticum dicoccum species, as well as the Triticum monococcum and Triticum aestivus species in proportion of approx. 10%. Likewise, we should signal the first occurrence on the territory of Romania of the Hordeum vulgare barley. Also present are such leguminous plants as lentil and vetch. Of paramount interest is that wheat was harvested, as discovered in a settlement south of the Carpathians (Teiu, the Gumelniţa culture), and was possibly used, if partially only, in other areas, too. The wheat was harvested by pulling out, then was sheaved and tied with switch, vine shoots or ivy. Once carried to the settlement, the grains were beaten off the ears.
The Vinča communities that have advanced on the middle course of the river Mureş, under the influence of the Starčevo-Criş traditions and the elements of the linear pottery, created a new cultural synthesis called the Turdaş culture. The occurrence of signs incised on the bottom of several vessels, particularly on those at Turdaş (county Hunedoara), often regarded as the potter’s mark, more recently have been considered by some researchers as early attempts at recording dates graphically. That things might stand this way is demonstrated, apparently, by the baked clay tablets covered with incised pictographic patterns at Tărtăria (county Alba), discovered, according to N. Vlassa, in a ritual hole in the ground next to clay and alabaster idols and a fragment of an anchor, all of which have triggered hot debate over the stratigraphy and chronology of the settlement.
The preservation by some Starčevo-Criş communities of painted pottery, in addition to the Vinča elements, engendered in the area of the eastern arch of the Western Carpathians the Cluj-Cheile–Turzii-Lumea Nouă-Iclod cultural complex. This complex represents the substratum for the emergence of the Pereşti culture. Long term research at Iclod has demonstrated that this station possessed a complex fortification system built during the Iclod I phase, still in use for some time in the Iclod II phase, eventually abandoned when the settlement expanded. It is in the same spot that research has been carried in two inhumation necropoles where the dead were laid on their backs hands across their chests or abdomens or along their bodies; the bodies were oriented east-west, their heads facing east. The inventory consists in vessels (cylindrical, painted bowls, S profile pots), ochre, stone utensils, ornaments and animal offerings.
The Eneolithic (c. 4600/4500 – 3800/3700 BC) is characterized besides the presence of stone, bone, horn and baked clay utensils by an ever increasing number of copper items. It marks the first production of heavy copper tools moulds, (axes – chisels and axes) closely bound to the exploitation of the copper deposits in Transylvania. Likewise, gold is used for ornaments and the fashioning of such idols as those at Moigrad in the Bodrogkeresztúr /Gorneşti culture. In turn, the craft of pottery reaches a peak as attested by the great number of exquisitely decorated pots discovered in the Eneolithic strata.
The cultures typical for this period are Cucuteni-Ariuşd, Petreşti, Tiszapolgár/Româneşti and Bodrogkeresztúr/Gorneşti. The first two cultures are part of the great group of Eneolithic cultures with pottery painted in bi- and tri-chromatic patterns.
In the eastern territory of Transylvania, at Ariuşd (county Covasna), the first systematic excavations were deployed in what regards the neo-Eneolithic epoch in Romania. The material discovered has been integrated in the greater painted pottery complex Cucuteni-Ariuşd-Tripolie whose development is staked out by three phases (A, AB and B).
The Petreşti culture, whose evolution displays three phases (A, A-B and B), diffused across almost all of Transylvania, is regarded as local in origins by some specialists, as a migration originating from the southern areas of the Balkans, by others. It is primarily known by its painted decoration – patterns painted in red, brown-red, later brown, on a brick-red background, which testifies to the high standard of civilization of the bearers of this culture. The ornamental motifs consist in bands, rhombs, squares, spirals and windings. The typical forms are bowls, tureens, high stands. Plastic art is fairly scarce and so are brass items.
The end of this culture has been associated with the penetration of central Transylvania by the bearers of the Decea Mureşului culture/horizon and the Bodrogkeresztúr /Gorneşti culture.
The graves at Decea Mureşului, according to some, are a continuation of the rituals of Iclod, whereas according to others, they are the hard proof of the penetration of central Transylvania by a north-Pontic population. The presence of red ochre scattered over the skeletons or laid at their feet in the form of little balls, as well as other ritual elements find better analogies, however, in the necroplis at Mariopol in south Ukraine.
The Bodrogkeresztúr /Gorneşti culture, characterized by the occurrence of the so-called high-necked milk pots with two small protuberances pulled at the margin and drilled vertically, is a continuation of the Tiszapolgár/Româneşti (featuring recipients with bird bill protuberances and decorated with step or nettle incisions), in turn descended from the Tisa culture in the developed Neolithic period.
The settlements of the neo-Eneolithic cultures were located on the low or high river terraces, on hilltops or hillspurs and consisted in several dwellings whose positions sometimes observed particular rules. Recent research has had a tendency of focusing on the defense systems (ditches and scarps) of these sites. The culture strata are thick and superposed forming at times regular tells.
The dwellings of this period are of several types. The earth houses displayed an oval shaped hole, with a maximum of 5–6 m and a minimum of 3 m in diameter. On one of the margins a simple fireplace was built out of a smoothed layer of clay. The thatched roof was conical or elongated and was supported by a trestle. The one room rectangular surface dwellings are also documented as dating back to the beginning of the Neolithic. They had wattle walls pasted with clay mixed with straw. The roof was double sloping, and the floor was made of trodden clay. The Cucuteni
Cucuteni
Cucuteni is a commune in Iaşi County, Romania, with a population of 1,446 as of 2002. It is located 45 km from the city of Iaşi and 10 km from the town of Târgu Frumos. Neighbouring villages and communes are Todireşti , Târgu Frumos and Cotnari and Ruginoasa...
dwellings in south-east Transylvania are spacious (40-100 m2 and over), often have a platform and are divided into two or more rooms.
Neo-Eneolithic sculpture is represented by cultic figures, idols, and talismans fashioned out of bone, stone or clay. These are human or animal representations conveyed by stylized or exacerbated particular body parts. Among the thousand anthropomorphous statues discovered, the female ones, symbols of fertility and fecundity, prevail by far.
Copper was first used for fashioning small implements or ornaments (needles, awls, fishing hooks, pendants, etc.), while gold was used solely for aesthetic and decorative purposes. For a long time the items were produced in the technique of hammering, for the technique of casting mould as well as that of „cire perdu” emerged much later. Although we hold no proof of the provenance of the first metal items they are admittedly local rather than import products. That does not necessarily contend that metallurgy was the invention of the local population, for it quite possibly might have been introduced as a result of the contacts with regions where metal processing had started earlier on (the East or Caucasus).
The Eneolithic marked a notable advancement in the development of metallurgy. Throughout this period copper artifacts are present in the settlements, in grave inventories or even in deposits (assemblies of whole or fragmentary objects concentrated in one, usually isolated, place). This period also marks a high incidence in flat axes, pins, simple or multi-spiral bracelets or necklaces. The most complex of all Eneolithic achievements is axe. These weapon-implements are bound to the late phases of the Cucuteni, Decea Mureşului and Bodrogkeresztúr/Gorneşti cultures.
The gold Eneolithic items, outnumbered by the copper, actually constitute the beginnings of goldsmithing in the Transylvanian lands. We cannot end this chapter without mentioning the great gold pendant in the thesaurus of Moigrad (county Sălaj), which is 30 cm in height and weighs 750g.
We know relatively little about the racial types of the Transylvanian Neolithic population. The area of some of the cultures, for instance Cucuteni, lack funeral finds, for they are the expression of ritual practices that elude archeological methods. The few anthropological data available (Gura Baciului, Iclod) evoke Mediterranean type physical features.
The role of the invasion of the shepherd tribes coming from the north-Pontic (supposedly Indo-European kinship) bringing to an end the Eneolithic culture of sedentary farmers represents one of the hotly debated issues among specialists in the prehistory of south-eastern Europe. What yesterday might have seemed exclusively a migration of shepherd tribes, today can be understood as a socio-economical transformation of the local population, its adaptation to the new environment, to the evolution of society (the increasing role of the animal breeders and shepherds, the development of metallurgy, more mobility, the increasing military role of the elites, changes in the belief systems, etc.).
In conclusion, the archeological data available present the Eneolithic as a period of stability in which the sedentary populations created some of the most spectacular civilizations within the European area.
The Bronze Age
As the human communities acquired the secrets of alloying brass and arsenic, tin, zinc, or lead, achieving the first items in bronze, the long period during which stone constituted the main raw material for fashioning implements and weapons was coming to an end. The emergence and development of bronze metallurgy is accompanied by numerous substantial changes in the economic and social life, in the spiritual life and in the arts. The ensemble of these modifications – archeologically identifiable especially midway in the Bronze Age, yet already prefigured early on in the transition period from the Eneolithic to the Bronze Age – indicate a civilization far more sophisticated than we had imagined but few years ago.For a long time the Bronze Age was divided into four periods, but the archeological facts have imposed in the last decades the use of a three-part system: Early, Middle and Late Bronze. In absolute chronology it can be admitted that this historical period covers most of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.
The first stage of Early Bronze is a genuine cultural mosaic juxtaposing transitory civilizations with those typical for the Bronze Age. For the first, the most typical is the Baden – Coţofeni cultural block, which perpetuated in many aspects a transitory lifestyle, but evolved in parallel to the pre-Schneckenberg and Schneckenberg civilisations, which were more dynamic in taking over the products of the Aegean-Anatolian Early Bronze. We consider that one can no longer speak of Eneolithic or neo-Eneolithic cultures as defined by this historical period, for the changes occurring in the social structure are radical. Let us mention the rise in status of the chieftains marked by the erection of tumulus funeral monuments, the different type of metallurgy, the different type of economy based on marked mobility as signaled by the impressive number of settlements belonging to the Coţofeni culture.
During the second stage, in the center of Transylvania there develops a cultural group bearing the name of the locality of Copăceni (county Cluj), who favored the locations afforded by the elevated sites in the eastern, probably western too, arch of the Western Carpathians and the upper basin of the Someş rivers. The main pursuits are agriculture, animal breeding and ore extraction. Theirs are surface dwellings, medium sized (3x4m) with a rectangular layout, and pottery displays mainly high-necked pots with a short bottom portion often decorated with barbotine. Frequently the pots’ margins are thicken and often decorated with rope impressions. The dead are buried in tumuli such as those at Cheile Aiudului, Cheile Turzii or Cheile Turului. The Copăceni group evolves in parallel to the Şoimuş and Jigodin groups, the former in the south-west, and the latter in the south-east Transylvania.
Finally, the third stage is the least known, and is characterized by the use of ceramics with brush decorations and textile impressions.
The non-ferrous metallurgy in Early Bronze Age, given the substantial fall in production as compared to the Eneolithic, should be regarded as undergoing some sort of realignment, repositioning, rather than marking an acute decline. The causes of this phenomenon are multiple and diverse in nature (exhaustion of the usual mineral sources, major technological modifications, perturbing ethnic reshuffling, etc.). It is essential, however, that it is now that the first bronze items (brass alloyed with arsenic, later, tin) emerge. The archeological monuments of this period offer more varied jewelry (hair rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants made in copper, bronze or gold), poniards, flat axes as well as raised margin axes. Yet the most important achievement of the age rests the single-edget axe. Apparently the majority of these products were manufactured in local workshops. The proof is the numerous moulds for casting axes discovered at Leliceni (county Harghita) part of the Jigodin group. Hard to ignore is the often evoked ritual hole at Fântânele, part of the Copăceni group, where were found, among others, fragments of moulds for casting metal items (little chisels, poniards, massif axes), testifying that the level of the Baniabic/Vâlcele (county Cluj) type of axes had most certainly been attained.
The Middle and Late Bronze Age. In what regards the diffusion of the archeological cultures on the lower course of the river Mureş we encounter the Periam-Pecica/Mureş culture, bordered in the south by the Vatina culture and in the north (territories in Hungary and Slovakia included), by the Otomani culture; the Transylvania plateau is occupied by the Wietenberg culture
Wietenberg culture
Wietenber culture was a Bronze Age archeological culture in Central Transilvania. Represented a local variant of Usatovo culture and was replaced by Noua culture. Its name was coined after the eponymic Wietenberg Hill near Sighisoara....
, which gradually cedes part of its northern area to the Suciu de Sus culture. Al of these cultures largely evolve in synchrony, the more chronologically advanced being evidently the Mureş culture with a late debut in the case of the Suciu de Sus culture. Among the five regional cultural groups, the Wietenberg and Otomani cultures occupy a special position. Their division into periods as accounted for by the stratigraphy of the sites at Derşida (county Sălaj) and Otomani (county Bihor) represents, in addition to that of Sărata Monteoru in Muntenia, the pillars of the Romanian Bronze chronology.
The late period of the Bronze Age brings to Transylvania a marked process of cultural uniformity, whose direct manifestation is the local variety of the Noua culture. It is now, too, that the Lăpuş groups spins off the Suciu de Sus culture while the western areas are covered by the Cehăluţ and Igriţa groups.
Ceramics is the prehistoric artifact that has been available to us in the greatest of quantities and varieties, while providing the foundation of all of the abovementioned cultural entities. This document most often than not testifies to the prehistoric technique, as well as to the imagination and art of the culture bearers, unveiling the populations’ unimaginable spiritual horizons. Obviously, this is not a static category, but rather it underwent over the years major changes both in form and content. The pattern repertory of all of these cultures is abstract, geometric and, regularly, at the start of their developed stages, it predominantly displays solar symbols dynamically designed (continuous spirals, crosses with spirals etc.) mainly for the Wietenberg, Otomani and Suciu de Sus cultures, with the same symbols realized in static forms (crosses, spiked wheels, rays, etc.) for the other cultures (Vatina, Mureş). Natural elements occur rarely mainly in the figurative art. Most remarkable in this context are the super-elevated handles shaped into ram heads of a large size recipient found south of the Carpathians, at Sărata Monteoru (county Buzău); the motif is resumed in markedly stylized forms, symbolical even (to the extent that an animal was exemplified through a single typical defining element: the ram’s horns, for instance.) on numerous of the pot handles of the Wietenberg culture. It is the same culture that claims two most rare achievements: a fragment of a cult wagon, exquisitely decorated, with both extremities ending in protomes shaped as sheep-goat heads, discovered at Lechinţa de Mureş (county Mureş) and a gold axe displaying a fine engraving of a human silhouette next to a bovine silhouette whose provenance is the thesaurus of Ţufalău (county Covasna).
A close scrutiny of the production technique of the more special, complex, vessels, the perfect duct of some of the complex
decoration patterns, reinforce our belief that the ceramics was produced by members of the community who had specialized in it, which does not exclude the employment of labor from among other social groups, mainly children and adolescents, evidently performing a secondary role. The transport of recipients over long distances in the absence of good roads must have been an equally difficult operation which called for the existence of itinerant craftsmen and/or of special workshops in the proximity of the more important centers.
The partial representations, the schematic physiognomies, as well as the faithful thematic rendering, if rare, all evoke a new symbolic expression that dominated the art of statuettes too. The moulding of the zoomorphic and anthropomorphic statuettes no longer attain the rich realism of the prior epoch, which is explained by the changes occurring in the religious and cult structure of the society. The incised and engraved decorations focus particularly on the details of the costume and the jewelry worn (hair rings, diadems, pendants, necklaces, etc.)
The importance of the settlements, as created and limited human space, for the prehistoric population is graphically suggested by M. Eliade when he equates them with the symbol of the “centre of the world”. We shall encounter in the analyzed cultural area sites evolving from simple groupings of lodges to complex urban facilities with a view to maintaining collective lifestyle quality, ensuring life and goods protection, and meeting special social, economic, defense and cultic needs. The synchronic existence in limited areas of settlements differing in location, size, content and function suggests the existence of site complexes functioning on terms of dependence or complementariness. Thus, there are central sites, with long term developments, the economic, political and religious epicenters of a larger territory (Derşida, Otomani, etc.), but also secondary sites evolving at the level of hamlets or seasonal dwellings (Suatu, Cluj-Napoca, etc.). The Otomani civilization in particular features a marked settlement hierarchy manifested in the ordered positioning of the lodging assemblies, suggesting a pre-urban tendency. For instance, at Otomani – Cetăţuie a circular settlement has been investigated located on a hilltop and enclosed by a ditch and rampart. The lodgings were distributed in two concentric circles around an empty space at the center. The same organizing system is attested at Sălacea, where a megaron-type sanctuary has been researched additionally.
Prior to this century the Intra-Carpathian space has been predominantly a land of farmers, as well as of craftsmen and animal breeders. In settlements belonging to the classical period of the Bronze Age were found charred seeds, numerous farming implements, grinding mills of diverse types all attesting the intensive cultivation of grains. The large scale usage of a primitive type of plough drawn by oxen is signaled by a great number of plough shares made of deer horn. Besides the wheat, millet, barley and rye as made known by several finds from the Bronze Age, a Wietenberg ritual complex researched recently at Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
produced charred buckwheat, chick-peas and sesame seeds, while the ritual complexes at Oarţa de Sus (county Maramureş) revealed the use of notch weed and sorrel.
Animal economy of the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
, with familiar local variations, was based on pig, sheep and goat breeding with a decline in large horned cattle. Thus, the inhabitants of the settlements of the Vatina and Otomani cultures seems to have focused on breeding swine, sheep, goats and on intense hunting; while the Wietenberg and Noua communities the highest incidence seems to have been that of cattle, used both as a food source and for traction, followed by sheep, goats, swine and horses. In the domain of animal breeding, one must remark on the constant presence of horses and their employment for transport and on their role in revolutionizing the means of transportation and communication. It is also worthwhile signaling the emergence and spread of the wagon with big wheels, later with spikes, used as a means of transporting loads, as a warring and hunting vehicle, or to symbolize social status in festive or cultic processions.
The food provided by agriculture and animal breeding was supplemented by hunting and fishing. Their weight within the economy ensemble varied among the communities of the Bronze Age. For instance, at Sărata Monteoru (the Monteoru culture) they represented 8.11% and at Pecica, of the Mureş culture, – 17.95%, in contrast to the area of the Noua culture where the percentage of hunting was, as a rule, much below 1-3%. Deer rests the most prized game in the Bronze Age, followed by the wild boars and roebucks. A bigger and more constant flow of the rivers determined by an increasingly wet climate is attested by the large fish bones found in many Bronze Age settlements.
There are no clear indications as to which of the two pursuits (agriculture-animal breeding) prevailed within the Bronze Age communities, with research revealing that both were being practiced concomitantly within the same area. Against the background of an increase in the population stability, one must remark, however, an alternation between a prevailingly pastoral East and a farm-dominated West.
Due to progress made in shepherding, in agriculture assisted by animal traction, as well as in metallurgy, the economic role of males increased with men acquiring a dominant position within the family and in society.
For the bearers of the Bronze Age cultures, the mountain attractions besides hunting, timber and fruit, were the copper and precious metal ores. Copper, silver and gold have always constituted some of the main assets of the Intra-Carpathian subsoil (by this we refer preponderantly to the Apuseni Mountains as well as to the ores in the Maramureşului Mountains or the copper in the Giurgeului Mountains and Baia de Aramă). Metal outcrops claimed to be sought for by specialists, who most certainly then kept them secret. By washing gravel and/or digging holes and pits for nuggets, the ore seekers covered the demand of the local, prehistoric Europe, and even Mycenaean elites.
Largely, when speaking of prehistoric exploitation of non-ferrous metals in Transylvania one specifies as its unique direct proof the stone axe found in a gallery in Căraci (county Hunedoara). Still, one should not ignore the impressive anthropomorphous statue discovered at Baia de Criş (county Hunedoara) or Ciceu – Mihăieşti (county Bistriţa-Năsăud), which through the implements (pickaxe, basket) whose absolutely sensational analogies were found in the photos of miners taken by B. Roman at the middle of the last century, certifies that the exploitation of the non-ferrous metals was performed underground too. Furthermore, the Naturalhistoriches Museum in Wien preserves two hair rings with the mention Dealul Vulcoi (Roşia Montana), district Câmpeni, region Cluj, while the Museum in Lupşa exhibits a miner’s axe and a club, both having for their provenance the Lupşei valley. All of these discoveries demonstrate the presence of some important prehistoric miner groups in the areas rich in ore of the Apuseni Mountains.
More and more we find traces of the people involved in the bronze-related activities: finite or semi-finite items, moulds, deposits or isolated items. The tracks of quarries and work-sheds are rather frail, firstly, because of subsequent exploitation, secondly, because of far too few exhaustive archeological investigations. Fairly well known is the little workshop for moulding bronze pieces in the Wietenberg settlement at Derşida. The most complete and spectacular data referring to metal processing workshops gathered so far, although partial, come from Palatca (county Cluj), from the Late Bronze Age, when the workshop was in close proximity of the dwelling area. The research has brought to daylight numerous moulds for casting metal items, unfortunately extremely fragmented, the fragment of a bronze cake, rectangular in shape, with curved sides, a bronze anvil, slag, several fragments of hand-mills, burnt out fireplaces and diverse rocks. Space in the workshop was organized in a complex way, depending on the activities deployed (selecting and grinding rocks, cutting and melting cakes, casting and retouching items). The presence at Palatca
Palatca
Pălatca is a commune in Cluj County, Romania. It is composed of five villages: Băgaciu, Mureşenii de Câmpie, Pălatca, Petea and Sava.- Demographics :According to the census from 2002 there was a total population of 1,374 people living in this commune...
of the plano-convex type bronze cakes and, for the first time ever on Romanian territory, of the Egeean type, as well as the probable absence of metal reduction kilns demonstrate that this operation was performed in the extraction areas.
The conversion of minerals to metal by means of fire was a process accompanied by rituals, magic formulas, and chanting to bring about the “birth of the metal.” At the foundation of a kiln at Palatca formed by a burnt out clay fireplace and several slabs of whetstone laid one on top of the other, probably round in shape, a clay vessel had been deposited. Furthermore, in the close proximity of the workshop a large ritual area has been researched. Most interesting are the multiple hypostases in which next to other items (hand-mills, bronze items, ash, coal, etc.) are posited recipients with/of offerings: underneath or on top of the whetstone slabs, head down or head up.
The multitude of the ethnographic data which assimilate the ground with the belly, the mine with the womb, and the ore with the embrio, speaks of the sexuality of the mineral realm, of the blacksmith’s belongings and implements. The production of items is the equivalent of a birth and takes on an obstetrical dimension. The blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
’s implements, too, have a sexual value. The anvils, for instance, are identified with the female principle. Under the circumstances, the closeness between the shape of the orifice for setting in place the anvil at Palatca and the female generating organ is not accidental. We cannot conclude our presentation of some of the main constituents of the workshop at Palatca, their significance included, without mentioning another unique discovery: the meteorite. The meteorites coming from the skies fall on Earth with a celestial sacred charge and are often associated with the blacksmiths’ activity.
The scarcity of settlements with metallurgic activity also hints at the possible existence of itinerant artisans and/or the centralization of the activity. This new development in bronze processing registers a specialization in production by the appearance of prospectors, blacksmiths and merchants, who exported the surplus produce. Through exchange, the Transylvanian and east-Hungarian type axes with spiken discs spread far east to Bug, and to the north, in the Oder and Elba region, Pomerania included, a phenomenon connected with the great amber road and the exploitation of brass and tin in the Elba region. The metal artisans are not in power, but rather work under the control of an elite who had seen the contingencies between metal and wealth, technology, war and even the social and cultic structure.
The first level with gift depositaries consisted in two main themes: the sword and the axe, outlining the role of the two weapons in the Intra-Carpathian warrior. The lance must have been yet another important weapon, but is less of a finding. The characteristics of the period are bronze deposits at Apa, county Satu Mare (two swords, three war axes and a defense bracer), Ighie, county Alba (two axes with spiked discs and four defense bracers) and at Săpânţa, county Maramureş (a spiked disc axe of type A2, exquisitely decorated, older than all the other pieces, spiral bracers, arm bands, and cordiforme pendants). Within the following stage there were produced and stored especially undecorated bronze items (single-edget axe, spiked disc axe), in ever mounting quantities. Many continued in the style of those created prior to them, but there also emerge new types. One should not omit from among the top creations of the Bronze Age metallurgy the Mycenaean type rapiers whose dating is still under debate.
Late Bronze determines a marked increase in metallurgic production based on the discovery of new non-ferrous mineral sources and the adoption of upgraded technology. The eastern experience brought along by the bearers of the Noua culture and the southern one (through Central European connections) implemented by some late derivatives of the Otomani culture, both grafted on the uncontested local experience, make of Transylvania, we think, the most prolific of metallurgic centers in prehistoric Europe. The differences identified between the deposits of the period speak not of unitary series but of types of deposits with a more limited geographic spread. One of them, characterized by the almost exclusive presence of several types of axes, socked axes, bracelets and foot rings, delineates the area of diffusion of the Suciu de Sus culture. The deposits in the area of the post-Otomani groups (Igriţa and Cehăluţ) contain almost exclusively ornament items, mainly pendants and pins. Finally, in central and eastern Transylvania, in the area of the Noua culture, we encounter the third type deposit with the prevailing Transylvanian type of socked axes and the sickle.
Only a small number of bronze items were found in settlements and cemeteries. Most of them have a fortuitous appearance in what we call deposits. Romanian archeology has interpreted their storage as a proof of troubled times, yet today a new interpretation is gaining ground: they are cultic deposits functioning as offerings, or at times, as the result of prestigious inter-community auctions of the “potlatch” type. The arguments in favour are unshakeable: long periods of peaceful development, the location of the deposits (confluence of rivers, lakes, springs, clearings, mild slopes looking east, etc.), the number of items, the arrangements, their manipulations (fired, bent, fragmentation through bending, etc.), etc. Moreover, we do not see the logic of why some imminent military threat should cause the locals to dislodge and bury in the ground their arms.
The multiplication of the offensive, in contrast to the defensive, fighting equipment (swords type Boiu – Sauerbrunn, battle axes with spiked disc, daggers, spearheads, arm bracers, all made of bronze) assembled in deposits or constituting isolated finds, the development of settlements with man-made defense, the existence of distinct warrior graves, gives the impression that the Bronze Age was a warring world. We hold, however, numerous arguments that it was really a matter of parading rather than using force.
The extraordinary non-ferrous mineral wealth of the Intra-Carpathian space has often been remarked upon in the speciality literature. The overwhelming number of finds of copper, bronze, silver and gold products is, we believe, hard to equal in prehistoric Europe. For instance, no other limited prehistoric space is known to have contained two large deposits dating from the same short range of time (Halstatt A1). Uioara de Sus, accidentally found in 1909, assembles over 6 000 items weighing approximately 1 100 kg, while Şpalnaca II 1,000 paces away from the former, in the year 1887, totaling a weight of 1 000 – 1 200 kg, is formed similarly of thousands of items. In addition to Şpalnaca I, the Şpalnaca II was discovered a short distance away in the year 1881 consisting of 120 bronze items, a deposit dated Hallstatt B1.
The native copper ores often occur together with gold and silver deposits. The gold must have been obtained both through the washing gravel method in the valleys rich with such ores, as well as through the exploitation method of the gold ore or the of surface or shallow veins in deep valleys or landslides, etc. There is no doubt that the tools and procedures of washing auriferous gravel did not differ widely from those used throughout the ages to the beginning of the 20th century. A wooden shovel, a vat (a similar clay item was found in one of the tumuli at Lăpuş), a screen, a piece of woolen linen or even a sheep’s wool sufficed. The turnout was a few grams per day for each worker in part.
As shown, Transylvania also was one of the most important European centers of gold and silver extraction and processing. The thesaurus found in 1840 at Ţufalău, county Covasna, in the area of the Wietenberg culture, whose contents and dating has been discussed, speaks clearly of the wealth and refined tastes of a social elite. Kept in a clay pot, the thesaurus contained among others several solid gold axes, ornamental falere with spiral motifs, hair rings, one bracelet and a large gold piece. A great number of gold and silver items (bracelets, inele de buclă, etc.) were found at Oarţa de Sus, with accurate stratigraphy, in a ritual space belonging to the Wietenberg culture. Such thesauruses containing hundreds of pieces weighing several kilograms as those at Sarasău (county Maramureş) or Hinova (county Mehedinţi) are few and likely to represent the community treasure. They are outnumbered by those displaying fewer items which seem to have been the private property of some leaders.
The blacksmiths gave a measure of their talent both in what concerned the ceramic, arm and ornament shapes as well as in ornamentation, which often reaches perfection. It would have been impossible for each community member to fashion his own tools for this required some high qualification, so this proves that within a community the craftsmen carried out a distinct activity. Metal, bone, stone or clay processing were most certainly operations performed by qualified people, who deployed their activity in small or, at variance, large workshops as those at Derşida or Palatca.
There certainly existed many wooden tools or recipients, but they haven’t been preserved. Animal skin processing, too, must have been widespread and served for fashioning clothing items, shields, and harnesses, etc.
The results yielded by archeological investigation in the Bronze Age necropoles reveal the direct proof of funeral practices peculiar to each community. The graves, with variations specific to the different cultural entities, by their design and their contents attest an advanced spiritual culture. Incineration (Wietenberg culture) or inhumation (Noua culture), the placing of more or less offering-items alongside the deceased, all imply abstract thinking and belief in the afterlife.
The information offered exclusively by archeological investigations is far too little and disparate for a complete and detailed reconstruction of the religion, dualistic if any, of the Bronze Age population. The solar symbols dynamic or static in form (continuing spirals, simple crosses or crosses with spirals, spiked wheels, rays, etc.) are so numerous that they could be illustrated in a separate volume, and speak clearly about the prevailing role of this cult.
The cultic practices were performed by the bearers of the Bronze Age in diverse locations: in the mountains, trees, springs, rivers, clearings or even, as noticed, specially assigned places inside the settlements. At Sălacea, county Bihor, in the southern area of the settlement of the Otomaniu culture there was a cultic edifice, a megaron type sanctuary measuring 5.20x8.80m, with a porch with two in antis pillars, a pronaos with an elevated altar and a naos with two fix altars. The solid crust on the altar surface testifies to the rituals involving fire, while the walls nearby were provided with circular orifices (a ventilating system and alternative lighting of the altars depending on sunrise and sunset). On one of them were found 9 clay weights, 3 curved stone knives, one cylindrical clay stand. The other had 9 clay weights in miniature, 3 curved stone knives and one cylindrical stand. The symbolic value of the items and their number speak for themselves. The walls were decorated with plaster work with geometrical motifs (spirals, continuing spirals) randomly painted in white. Close by the entrance an infant grave was researched, possibly partially deposited as an offering. Another founding ritual is encountered in Early Bronze at Copăceni where under the lodge’s floor board were found five human skeletons (one female adult and four fetuses). Judging by their position – the female in an obstetric position with the fetuses around her basin and one between her inferior members – it could very well be a mother and her infants.
All of these practices, judging by the archeological data mentioned before, as well as based on different analogies, were accompanied by offerings, libations, chanting and cultic dancing. Apart from some daily festivals (sawing, picking, reaping, sheep departure or return, etc.) celebrated by each entity in part, there must have been an annual or multi-annual festival of the whole community, or of a part of it. This has been made known to us from the abovementioned research at Oarţa de Sus - Ghiile Botii. The divinities warding this space were in harmony both with the weapons, ornaments or gifts personal or social in nature (grains, plants, food), with the animal, even human, sacrifices, with the ceramics and bone, as well as with gold, silver or bronze. This wide variety of offerings, deposited in the course of grand religious ceremonies, indicate either an all-encompassing deity, or else several deities all worshipped within the same space. It is in the Wietenberg culture area too, at Cluj-Napoca, that the underground deposition of offerings in a ritual hole and their contents (numerous recipients filled with charred seeds) speaks of an agricultural ritual, one which was chtonic, dedicated to a harvest-giving deity ruling fertility. It is sensible that we should be discussing in this case sacred agrarian rituals whose tradition is resumed in the historical epochs too, meant to inaugurate and imprint a rhythm to the agrarian calendar as well as achieve the union between sun and soil through the agrarian ceremonial. The repeated occurrence of the solar motifs covering the walls of the recipients deposited, typically masculine, might be speaking of the joining of the two spheres: earth-sun, female-male, immobile-mobile, thus demonstrating the dualism of creeds in the Bronze Age.
The links between the Carpathian space and the Mediterranean civilizations have often been the issue of debates forwarding quite diverging opinions concerning their dating, direction and weight. One of the main arguments is the bronze rapiers discovered on the territory of Romania. These long thrusting swords (symbols of dignity and power as well as formidable weapons) are obviously local products executed on southern models. The decorating motifs based on spirals and fine windings on bronze or gold weapons, on bone or horn items, near perfection especially in the areas of the Wietenberg and Otomani cultures, even if created independently on Aegean models, can’t be too far removed in time. The glass in the Noua graves at Cluj-Napoca, the Dentalium beads discovered at Derşida in a Wietenberg milieu are, too, of Mediterranean origins. At Oarţa de Sus on the shoulder of one of the cult recipients are symbols in a line that are most certainly epigraphic. Similar images, also bespeaking the connection with southern civilizations, are signaled by the discoveries belonging to the Otomani culture at Barca (Slovakia). Just so one of the bronze cakes at Palatca copies the well-known Aegean model. Rhather difficult to explain are the striking similarities between the Wietenberg ceramics and of the Apennine culture in northern Italy. The assumption of a common generating center made long ago is still standing until final clarification.
At the same time, the metals exploited on the slopes of the eastern arch of the Western Carpathians arrived in different ways, as seen, in distant places in south, west, north or even east Europe; so did the salt Transylvania is so rich in. Just as the obsidian, most probably exploited in the Bükk Mountains (Hungary), is encountered in the Wietenberg cultic complex discovered at Cluj-Napoca. The amber items in the deposit discovered at the Cioclovina cave have for their provenance the Baltic Sea, while the Caucasian influences are indicated by the axe discovered at Larga (county Maramureş).
The marked expansion of the short, medium or long distance (pan European) exchanges in middle and late Bronze Age brought about a growing dependence between the different cultural groups, an acceleration and uniformity in the cultural values and produce, all of which in turn sped up the general development of society and the passage to a new phase in the historical evolution.
The Iron Age (Hallstatt)
The first Iron Age also called Halstatt (after the finds in the locality of Hallstatt, Austria) covers the 10th to 5th centuries (1000-400) BC and is divided into three periods: early (1000-700), middle (700-600) and late (600-400).The defining phenomenon of the epoch is represented by the use of iron with a paramount impact on mankind’s subsequent evolution. Hence the name assigned to the epoch.
In contrast to the heterogeneity of the preceding ages, the first Iron Age is remarkable for its homogeneity, which is the result of the emergence and generalization of a new culture displaying black ceramics ornamented with grooves. This cultural homogenization in the First Iron Age represents essentially the material proof of the constitution within the Carpathian Danubian space of the early Getae-Dacians, who are culturally distinguishable form the southern Thracians (of close ties) and the other neighboring peoples. That this was, largely speaking, the direction of the evolution and the ethno-historical reality in this space, we are told by the father of history himself, Herodotus: recounting the Persian king Darius’ expedition to the mouth of the Danube in 514 he mentions the Getae too, praising them for their valiance.
Over 600 find-spots are known so far across the territory of Transylvania from the first Iron Age. The majority indicate the existence of settlements covering the stages of this epoch. Among them the more remarkable are the 26 fortifications, some inhabited permanently, others used for refuge and defense in times of peril.
Largely, the fortified settlements and the refuge fortifications were located on elevations difficult to access in the proximity of water courses and fertile areas. Their sizes vary with the chosen location and, undoubtedly, with the size and the possibilities of the communities in the area. For instance, the fortified settlement at Sântana (county Arad) with an area of app. 100 hectares or those at Ciceu-Corabia (county Bistriţa-Nasaud) and Teleac (county Alba), each measuring 30 hectares, count among the largest in Europe. The first Iron Age fortifications are also known in the county of Cluj, in Dej, Huedin and Someşul Rece.
The defense systems surrounding these regular strongholds consisted of ditch, rampart and palisade, the last of which was designed as a wooden wall erected on the ridge of the rampart representing the most important element of the system. Thus designed, the fortifications generally measured 7–8 m in height, but sometimes could reach even 10-12 rendering them difficult to conquer.
As tribal centers, the fortified settlements had multiple functions, the foremost of which was to ensure the defense of the community, hence their military and political role. Moreover, the discovery of metallurgic workshops for manufacturing tools indicates that the settlements also housed qualified craft activities which entailed permanent exchange relations.
The agriculture represented in the first Iron Age the main pursuit which supplied food for the communities. The finding in the settlements of charred seeds indicate the cultivation of wheat, barley, rye, millet, as well hemp for linen, while the large size pots and the storage pits indicate how the harvests were preserved. Likewise, the emergence of the first iron farming implements, scythes, grubbing hoes and other indicate notable progress in the agricultural practice.
The large quantity of bones discovered in the settlements, most originating from domestic animals – cattle, sheep, swine – as well as game - indicate the importance of shepherding supplementing hunting, as well as the importance of meat in the daily diet.
Finally, besides some such crafts as metallurgy which imply a special qualification, within every family members engaged in a series of activities such as weaving, spinning, leather dressing and others as testified by the discovery in the dwellings of spindle, spools, sawing needles, and scrapers for cleaning hide.
The occurrence of decorations on a large number of vessels, the most perishable of categories, as well as on numerous body ornaments (hair pins, fibulae and others) shows that in the first Iron Epoch the artistic phenomenon was manifested especially in decorative art as geometric patterns.
Religion, a permanent presence in the daily life of the prehistoric communities is, too, attested by the findings. Thus, besides the magic practice and the fertility cult of ancient tradition, the depositing of offerings in appropriate ground holes, as well as the representations linked to the Sun cult, foreshadow the two components: chtonian and Urano-solar to become the characteristics of the Geto-Dacian religion in the classical period.
During the first Iron Epoch, the local culture received a number of influences from the neighboring areas. Thus midway through the epoch, on the middle course of the river Mureş there arrive from Banat the elements of a culture called Basarabi. Displaying ceramics with specific decorations (incised and impressed), the culture is assimilated by the autochthonous background.
Subsequently, at the beginning of the late period of this epoch (6th century BC), form the direction of the North-Pontic area comes into Transylvania a group of Scythian-Iranian extraction. This group is attested by a series of inhumation graves with typical inventory: arrow heads, lances called akinakai and animal art representations. Research shows that at about mid-5th century this group, too, disappears through assimilation by the local culture. Actually, the end of the century also marks the first Iron Epoch. During the following centuries the Geto-Dacians will attain a level of development that will lead them to a state-form organization.
See also
- Ancient history of TransylvaniaAncient history of TransylvaniaIn ancient times, Romans exploited the gold mines in what is now Transylvania extensively, building access roads and forts to protect them, like Abrud. The region developed a strong infrastructure and economy, based on agriculture, cattle farming and mining...
- History of TransylvaniaHistory of TransylvaniaTransylvania is a historical region in the central part of the Romania. In ancient times it was part of the Dacian Kingdom and Roman Dacia. Since the 10th century, Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Hungary...
- National Museum of Transylvanian HistoryNational Museum of Transylvanian HistoryThe National Museum of Transylvanian History is a history and archaeology museum in the city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. It features a permanent exhibition, as well as temporary exhibitions, the "Tezaur" exhibition, and Pharmacy Historical collection—this last opened in the Hintz House, an...
- Celts in TransylvaniaCelts in TransylvaniaThe Celts of Transylvania were an ancient people of Indo-European origin, first attested to archaeologically in Central Europe between 800–450 BC. By the time of the later La Tène period The Celts of Transylvania were an ancient people of Indo-European origin, first attested to...
- List of tribes in Thrace and Dacia
- List of cities in Thrace and Dacia
- 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...
- La Tène cultureLa Tène cultureThe La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....