This article covers the history and bibliography of Romania and links to specialized articles.
Prehistory of TransylvaniaBronze Age in RomaniaPrehistory of Southeastern EuropeCucuteni culture and Hamangia culture
Remains of 34,950-year-old modern humans with a possible Neanderthalian traits were discovered in present-day Romania when the Peștera cu Oase ("Cave with Bones") was uncovered in 2002. In 2011, older modern human remains were identified in the UK (Kents Cavern 41,500 to 44,200 years old) and Italy (Grotta del Cavallo 43,000 to 45,000 years old) but the Romanian fossils are still among the oldest remains of Homo sapiens in Europe, so they may be representative of the first such people to have entered Europe. The remains present a mixture of archaic, early modern human and Neanderthal morphological features.
The Neolithic-Age Cucuteni area in northeastern Romania was the western region of one of the earliest European civilizations, known as the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture. The earliest-known salt works is at Poiana Slatinei near the village of Lunca; it was first used in the early Neolithic around 6050 BC by the Starčevo culture and later by the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture in the pre-Cucuteni period. Evidence from this and other sites indicates the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture extracted salt from salt-laden spring water through the process of briquetage.
Celts in TransylvaniaDaciansDaciaDomitian's Dacian War and Trajan's Dacian Wars
The Dacians, who are widely accepted to be the same people as the Getae, with Roman sources predominantly using the name Dacian and Greek sources predominantly using the name Getae, were a branch of Thracians who inhabited Dacia, which corresponds with modern Romania, Moldova, northern Bulgaria, south-western Ukraine, Hungary east of the Danube river and West Banat in Serbia.
The earliest written evidence of people living in the territory of present-day Romania comes from Herodotus in Book IV of his Histories, which was written in 440 BC; He writes that the tribal union/confederation of the Getae were defeated by the Persian Emperor Darius the Great during his campaign against the Scythians, and describes the Dacians as the bravest and most law-abiding of the Thracians.