page_title: Romania in Antiquity
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Romania in Antiquity / Background
caption_attribution_description: Alba Iulia National Museum of the Union 2011
context_page_description: The Antiquity in Romania spans the period between the foundation of Greek colonies in present-day Dobruja and the withdrawal of the Romans from "Dacia Trajana" province. The earliest records of the history of the regions which now form Romania were made after the establishment of three Greek towns—Histria, Tomis, and Callatis—on the Black Sea coast in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. They developed into important centers of commerce and had a close relationship with the natives. The latter were first described by Herodotus, who made mention of the Getae of the Lower Danube region, the Agathyrsi of Transylvania and the Sygannae of Crişana.
  Archaeological research prove that Celts dominated Transylvania between the middle of the 5th century and the end of the 3rd century BC. The Bastarnae—a warlike Germanic tribe—settled in the regions to the east of the Carpathian Mountains around 200 BC. Confrontations between the natives and the Roman Empire began in the late 1st century BC. Among the former, the Dacians—who were closely connected to the Getae—rose to eminence under King Burebista.
context_section_description: Hoes, coulters and other tools made of antler were unearthed at nine "Schela Cladovei" settlements along the Lower Danube, suggesting that cultivation of plants began in the lands now forming Romania between around 9500 and 7500 BC. Animal husbandry appeared 1500 or 2000 years later with the arrival of a new population—the bearers of the "Gura Baciului-Cârcea/Precriş culture"—from the southern parts of the Balkan Peninsula. They lived in pit-houses and used chiseled stone tools. They decorated their fine pottery with geographical figures and produced clay figurines.
  The antrophomorphic figurines of the "Hamangia culture", which flourished in the region between the Lower Danube and the Black Sea until around 4000 BC, are outstanding representatives of Neolithic art. In addition to figurines, colored pottery featured the "Cucuteni-Trypillian culture" of Muntenia, northeastern Moldavia and southern Transylvania. "Cucuteni-Trypillian" settlements, which often covered an area reaching 6 hectares (15 acres), flourished until around 2000 BC. Production of copper tools and artifacts—pins, hooks, and pendants—and the use of gold can also be demonstrated from the last centuries of the Stone Age.
  Practically nothing is known of the languages spoken by the locals in this period. Historians—for instance, Vlad Georgescu and Mihai Rotea—say that the spread of Indo-European languages began in the period between 2500 and 2000 BC. Fortified settlements and the great number of weapons—arrowheads, spears and knife blades—unearthed in them show that the stability featuring the Stone Age cultures of "Old Europe" came to an end in the same period.
  Coexistence of a great number of transitory cultures, including the "Coțofeni" and "Glina cultures" characterized the first centuries of the Bronze Age. Metallurgy developed in the following period; deposits containing thousands of bronze tools, weapons and jewels from between around 2000 and 1500 BC were unearthed at many places, including Uioara de Sus and Șpălnaca in Transylvania. Finds of amber delivered from the coast of the Baltic Sea and weapons produced in Mycenaean Greece show the importance of trading with these distant regions of Europe. From around 1100 BC, a homogenization of pottery decorations and the development of new archaeological cultures can be detected. These new cultures spread over large territories; for instance, the "Basarabi culture" flourished in the wider region of the Lower Danube. The sporadic use of iron also began around 1100 BC, but it only became widespread about 350 years later.
caption: "Coțofeni" vessels
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S5 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa", "Image DateTime": "2011:09:03 07:42:28", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "218", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[46, 4, 23385/4096]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[23, 34, 481605/32768]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "Image GPSInfo": "3376", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3650", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3522", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/25", "EXIF FNumber": "27/10", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:09:03 07:42:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:09:03 07:42:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "149/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2592", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1944", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3502", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "11520", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1944000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "a2ed336344d1151abec6da31c84365c9"}