Talk:Prehistory of Southeastern Europe

older talk?

 * Previous Off-topic talk Catalographer (talk) 09:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Definition of Balkans in Prehistory
It seems that Crete,Aegean islands,Romania and parts of North ex-Yugoslavia fell outside of a stricly geographical definition of Balkans. However prehistoric civilizations of the region surpass this definition. Catalographer (talk) 09:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Definition of prehistoric in Balkans
"the period before written records" -
 * Minoan,Mycenaean ~1500 BC -
 * Thracian,Lemnian,Venetic 6th c.BC.
 * Related languages to Balkans : Phrygian ~ 800 BC, Messapic 6th c.BC
 * Till 3th c.BC most regions of Balkans have written records in Greek. Catalographer (talk) 10:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * if by "written records", you mean "scattered epigraphy", yes. Hardly qualifies as historiography. dab (𒁳) 13:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Written records existing for them even if they make no sense to us or appear trivial are still written records.Megistias (talk) 14:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * A useful transitional term

As with prehistory, determining when a culture may be considered prehistoric or protohistoric is sometimes difficult for the archaeologist

in Europe, the Celts and the Germanic tribes may be considered to have been protohistoric when they began appearing in Greek and Roman texts

from Protohistory Catalographer (talk) 18:21, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Prehistoric Romania merged into here: text that did not fit
''The following text from Prehistoric Romania does not fit into this article. Also, it appears its factual acuracy is highly disputed. So, just for reference, i copy it into the talk page here:''

The Romanian paleolithic is divided into five phases: Protopaleolithic, Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, Upper Pelolithic and Epipaleolithic.

Protopaleolithic
Some Romanian archaeologists (a small minority) support the theory that the Lower Palaeolithic starts in Romania some time between two million years ago (2 mya) and 700,000 years ago (700 kya). According to this theory, the human occupation in this area is marked by the appearance of the first chipped stone tools, the so-called "Pebble culture" ("Cultură de prund" in Romanian). These tools have been attributed to the "Homo erectus" hominid type as well as "Australoanthropus olteniensis" (according to the theory, a relative of the Australopithicines but more evolved and who used tools - sometimes referred to as Homo olteniensis). Australoanthropus is considered (according to this theory) the first ancestor of the Europeans to arrive in Europe. This theory is based largely on broken chert pebbles found in southern Romania (in Oltenia). The main stream archaeological community in Romania generally does not accept this theory, instead considering it more a form of pseudoarchaeology.

Lower Paleolithic
The Romanian Lower Paleolithic (circa 700,000 - 120,000) is characterised by the appearance of two distinct carved tools: the bi-facial stone axe (chopping tools; at first, the Olduwan (a.k.a. Abbevillian), later Clactonian type), and the stone chip (at first, Acheulean, later the Levalloisian type). These tools were attributed to the Homo erectus (a.k.a. Pithecantropus erectus) hominid species. Of major importance was the discovery of several fireplaces. This the first ever proof of the hominid's ability to control fire in what today is Romania.

Middle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic in Romania (circa 120,000 - 35,000) is characterised by the persistence of the Mousterian culture. During this time, the stone tools start to differ according to their function, and the first bone tools appear. These products have been attributed to the Neanderthals.

Scope of the article
I have some serious doubts about the accuracy of this article:
 * The name Protopaleolithic is new to me, and Google only gives this page.
 * I have never heard before that H. habilis ventured out of Africa, so what can tools made by him be doing in Romania?

Regards, Floris V 23:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes. The issue of the pebble culture in Romania. The whole thing about the pebble culture came out the "research" done during the communist era. People found broken chert pebbles and said, "Hey! This looks like the artefacts found in southern Africa. It must be contemporary. Those artefacts are 2 million years old, so these must also be about the same age." There have never been found any homonid skeletons of equal age or even animal bones with signs of butchering. At that time though, the government wanted to prove to the world that Romania was important and that their ancestry could be traced back as far as possible, so anyone who found proof of such things was encouraged to continue their research and publish.

Even today there are still some people (mainly the old guys that originally wrote about this stuff) that still affirm that these theories are correct. If you are in Craiova, be sure to check out the history museum where you can learn more about "homo Olteniensis", the first homonids in Europe. Apparently these guys were contemporary with homo Habillis. According to the museum these are the ones that left behind the pebble culture artefacts. The museum was quick to get rid of it's communist memorabilia exhibits after the revolution, but 18 years later and this exhibit is still there.

The results of archaeology done in Romania up to about the mid-90s needs to be seriously questioned. Already, research being done here has indicated that a lot of past research done here was at best low quality, and in some cases purely fictional. A quick review of the field notes and museum inventories shows how much data was not recorded. Re-excavation of some sites also reveals that stratigraphies were incorrectly recorded (if recorded at all). A lot of artefacts that appear in reports have dissappeared or were not not properly catalogued (i.e. can't be found now). And if you think that loosing a few artefacts is bad enough, consider that a lot of actual excavation sites have also been lost. Some current archaeologists have spend weeks searching where whole Roman and Dacian fortifications are supposed to be and found nothing. It unfortunately puts a lot of the old research into question as it's very difficult to distinguish between the results of a good excavation and the results of someone who needed to publish something and "embellished" the facts in their reports.

I propose that the "proto-palaeolithic" category be removed entirely until someone can show a recent (scientific) report supporting it, or at least to note that this is not a main stream theory accepted by the majority of archaeologists (within or outside of Romania). --O crandell (talk) 20:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I also agree here. There is no scientific evidence of humans in Europe before Upper Paleolithic, 42,000 years ago, let alone in Romania. Even if you talk about southern France, where one has Neanderthalian bones, let me remind that Neanderthalians are not modern humans, they are a different species from us; human history is not about them. In the case of Balkans there is, in addition, the issue that most likely this is all fake. I move for erasing from the article everything till subsection Upper Paleolithic. If that content is not deletable on spot, one can create an article about the controversy/the falsification of history by those "researchers". Personally, I don't want to bother with such an article, so my taste is simply to erase it, and leave it to someone else to create that article if he/she really wishes to. Anyone to second my motion to fix the scope of this article as "after 40,000 B.C."? Dc76\talk

Renaming the article
My second proposal is to rename the article to something like Prehistory of the Balkans. The article deals with things that happened between 42,000 and 4,000 years ago, when the demographic, social, linguistic, ethnics and a tone of other situations were very different from today. Associating prehistory with modern boundary maps is narrow-mindness. For just one example, the article mentions Cucuteni culture, which spans parts of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. Why this should be in Prehostoric Romania? Not to mention the fact that putting rehistory/ic as adjective suggests the existence of some geographical entity Romania in prehistory. One can have a geographic entity such as an island, or a very definite region, e.g. Iberian Peninsula. However Romania fails by far both this criteria. There was no Romania 42,000 y.a. And 4,000 y.a. still there was none: neither the name, nor the same geographic span. The issue becomes however different of we refer to the Balkans, one of the three ice age refugies in Europe. Since Romania is the biggest of the Balkan countries, it was natural to expect that this article would first emege in relation to Romania. But it is only a matter of time to improve the article with info from modern Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Moldova, western Ukraine, northern Greece. Anyone seconds me on renaming the article? Dc76\talk 23:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The name prehistoric SEE is good. But the projects of pre-historic Romania on the side need to be removed, or else prehistoric Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, etc, etc also need to be added Hxseek (talk) 23:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I am not totally following what you mean by "projects of pre-historic Romania". But I obviously agree with equal treatment of all modern countries. Please, go ahead and make changes. I will support them. Dc76\talk 07:16, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure that the merger of Prehistoric Romania was a good idea. Romania is not usually included in "Southeastern Europe". In fact, modern Romania is an artificial product of the 20th century and does not represent any sort of unified territory for the purposes of prehistory. The strip south of the Carpathians may arguably be included under "Balkans", but the Carpathians and Transilvania are a different story entirely. --dab (𒁳) 08:45, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Romania is not included in Balkans, but it is included in Southeastern Europe. With all due respect to your political and historical opinions, modern Romania is not a product of 20th century, but a culmination in 19th century (1859-1862) of something that started 300 years before that (mid 16th century, and especially after 1700), and it is anything but artificial. But I agree that modern boundaries have nothing to so with prehistory. I beg however to differ that modern boundaries have entered somewhere in the text of this article other than pointing to where today the area lies, which is simply for the sake of informing the reader. Carpathians did not represent a geographic boundary in prehistory, just as Danube did not represent one. The rough "boundary" that one can consider is that coming from the Y-chromosome DNA records which indicates Southeastern Europe as one of the 3 pockets in prehistoric Europe during the last Ice Age. Hence, Prehistoric Southeastern Europe would cover the Balkan refuge and the expansion of people from there, but not the people from the other 2 refuges (Iberian peninsula and Azov Sea). Dc76\talk 07:16, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

comment mistake
 I meant to say "Prehistoric Greece redirects to Aegean civilization." Sorry for he mistake. Dc76\talk 07:04, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Hungary, Slovakia, Zakarpattia Oblast
I would really appreciate if anybody could provide even a single reliable source which qualifies Hungary, Slovakia and the Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraina as territories belonging to Southeastern Europe? This qualification is a surprisingly new information for me. Borsoka Borsoka (talk) 15:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Why is Romania included?
As I understand, originally the article described the prehistory of the Balkan Peninsula. Is there any reason (I mean is there any reliable source) based on which Romania has been included?Borsoka (talk) 15:40, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Politically Romania has always been part of the Balkans, although geographically there are these new theories (showing up in Wikipedia), which exclude it. I think that geographically a peninsula is encircled by water in three parts and Romania (at least most of it) should be included geographically as well in the Balkans. --Sulmues (Talk) 15:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I probably did not express myself properly. My question is really simple: what is the reliable source based on which Romania has been included in this article taking into account the article's specific subject?Borsoka (talk) 16:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You asked for citations in the lede. The lede mentions Romania because the country is mentioned several times during the article. Please find those sources where Romania is presented during the article. In general, ledes do not warrant a reference, but they are a summary of the whole article. Hope I helped. --Sulmues (Talk) 16:14, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the information. For my surprise, Romania is covered by the 'Prehistoric Balkan' umbrella according to 2 reliable sources. (Actually, in the lede I did not ask for citation in connection with Romania.) Borsoka (talk) 16:55, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Borsoka, what is your problem? Romania has a very rich prehistory, if not the richest in Europe, directly connected to the Southeastern Europe. The ancient cultures did not stop at today's borders. You cannot simply disconnect modern Romanian territory from the culture, language(s) and mythology of Paleo-Balkans. Also many of cultures in the Neolitic section (Vinča, Cucuteni, Hamangia) span or are even centered in Romania. Many Romanians archaeologists are focused on Southeastern and Central Europe cultures. There is plenty of content where Romania will show up on such an article. Your question is non-sense.--Codrin.B (talk) 01:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Jar burials not mentioned
Why are the Neolithic jar burials in the Balkans not mentioned in this article? 173.89.236.187 (talk) 23:50, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Horribly mistaken chronology
The early Bronze Age in the Balkans starts around 3200 BC (Helladic_chronology) or even 3600 BC (Nikolova 2009).2A02:8108:963F:F853:7831:82EB:520A:BDC6 (talk) 09:07, 14 April 2019 (UTC)