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 Peștera Urșilor, the "Bears Cave", was home to a large number of cave bears (Ursus spelæus) 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.
Paleolithic (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 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 Pădurea 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, Sălaj 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 Căpușu 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 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 ( 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, Râșnov, Brașov 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 Boinești, 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 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 in Râșnov. 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, burins. In Banat, the settlements of Tincova, Coșava, and Românești-Dumbrăvița, have produced flint tools demonstrating that the Aurignacian in this area evolved closely with that in Central Europe (the Krems-Dufour group). Aurignician items were also found in the caves in the Western Carpathians, the most famous of which is the Cioclovina cave in Hunedoara County – the site, around the start of the 20th century, of the first Paleolithic discoveries in Transylvania.
The 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 Țara Oașului and Maramureș, 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).
The Late Gravettian covers Banat too, particularly the area of the Iron Gates of the Danube, where heads identical to the Laugerie-Basse type heads were discovered in grottoes 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).
Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic (13,000 – 9,500 BP)
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 Epipaleolithic. Consequently, this historical period could be associated with the interval between 13,000 and about 9,500-9,000 BP. These communities continued the lifestyles of the Upper Paleolithic. Due to numerous factors, including changes in the climate, the small groups of hunters-fishermen-gatherers innovated tool and weapon types – producing, for instance, microlites (trapeze) — while also keeping the traditional tool types.
The Iron Gates mesolithic culture of the central trans-Danube region, named by archaeologists after the gorge of Porţile de Fier ("Iron Gates"), was settled by a population attributed to the Late Epigravettian or Mediterranean Tardigravettian. The first stage of this period was discovered by archaeologists in the Climente II cave (Mehedinți County), and the second stage, by discoveries in the shelter under the rocks at Cuina Turcului, Dubova, both of which are 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 probably representing a female figure.
Besides the mammal (beaver, boar, mountain goat, 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 to the industries of the Italian Peninsula — the expression of the migrant human bearers of the Late Epigravettian in the mentioned area.
Mesolithic (9,500 – 7,500 BP)
Specialist opinions fix the beginning of the Mesolithic era at the end of the Preboreal, its development throughout the Boreal, and its end as late as the beginnings of the Atlantic. Chronologically then, it can be set between 9,500-9,000 and 7,500 BP. Two cultures are documented on the territory of Romania in this time period: the Tardenoisian and the Schela Cladova types.
The Tardenoisian spread in several of the country's regions (Moldavia, Muntenia, Dobruja), including the mountainous area of Transylvania in the southeast (Cremenea-Sita Buzăului, Costanța-Lădăuți) and northwest (Ciumești-Pășune). In the settlement of Ciumești, Satu Mare County, 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 ones, in addition to trapezes. The fauna remnants indicate the presence of wild boar and deer.
Some specialists do not exclude the possibility of identifying the Late Tardenoisian communities of the north-western Pontic or central European types (of which the settlement at Ciumești is one) as being in the process of neolithization, albeit incomplete, that is, displaying an incipient productive economy, whose foundations 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 were deer, roebucks, European bisons, wild boars, hares, wild donkeys, foxes, etc. Furthermore, it would seem that the representatives of this culture domesticated the dog.