page_title: Prehistory of Transylvania
section_title: Paleolithic
hierarchical_section_title: Prehistory of Transylvania / Paleolithic
caption_attribution_description: English: Lithic flake on flint, with its fundamentals elements for technic description
context_page_description: 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 "Bears Cave", was home to a large number of cave bears whose remains were discovered when the cave was discovered in 1975. Other caves in the area sheltered early humans.
  Prehistory is the longest period in the history of mankind, throughout of which writing was still unknown. In Transylvania specifically this applies to the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age.
context_section_description: (2,600,000 – 13,000 BP)
  The Paleolithic epoch, the oldest and longest period in the history of mankind, is divided by specialists into three stages of development: Lower Paleolithic, 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 (Hunedoara County). 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 male, female and child footprints. An anthropological analysis has identified Cro-Magnon and even Neanderthal characteristics in these footprints.
  The economy of the Paleolithic communities consisted mainly of exploiting natural resources: gathering, 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 (Sǎlaj County) is correct.
  The Lower Paleolithic in Transylvania, because data are scarce, is largely a mystery. If the discovery of an Acheulean lithic item at Căpuşu Mic (Cluj County) and of several Pre-Mousterian lithic items at Tălmaciu (Sibiu County) 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 (Harghita County) where several tools, and a rich fauna, have been encountered in certified stratigraphic positions, belonging to the geo-chronological interval covering the late Mindel to the early Riss.
  The Middle Paleolithic – Mousterian – covers a time period much shorter than that of the prior epoch (c. 100,000 – 33,000/30,000 BP). It is a 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 (Braşov County), and the Spurcată Cave — Nandru (Hunedoara County).
  The Mousterian period is closest to the alpine Paleolithic. Both periods were characterized by the presence of numerous quartzite slivers 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 (Satu Mare County) and Remetea (Maramureș County) have revealed several typically Mousterian tools (flake scrapers, blade scrapers, target points etc.), some of which have been associated with a later stage of the Mousterian, or even with a transition stage to the Upper Paleolithic, at the onset of the Aurignacian culture of the Upper Paleolithic.
  The process of regional diversification among cultures was accelerated in the Upper Paleolithic through the 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 oscillatio
caption: Fundamental elements for the technic description of a lithic flake.
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