The variable pre- and protohistory of the Transylvanian Basin, ringed by high mountains, can in no way be separated from the history of the neigh
bouring areas. The valleys of the Szamos, Maros and Olt rivers have always been a favourite route of traders and populations in search of a new home
land. Groups casting an eye on the mineral wealth of this area were not deterred by the seemingly impenetrable mountain ranges, while what ap
pear to be insignificant hills often acted as borderlines.
As a consequence of the geographic features of Transylvania and fre
quent immigrations, few periods have been characterized by a cultural and ethnic unity.
Even though the first human groups had probably colonized this area by the Lower Paleolithic, the first certain races of human settlement in Transyl
vania date to the Middle Paleolithic. At the beginning of the last glaciation, archaic Homo sapiens groups settled the caves of the Middle Maros region.
Som e of these sites show strong affinities with the slightly earlier or con
temporaneous cave dwellings in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula.
Their flakestone tools were manufactured exclusively from quartzite. It is noteworthy that while a group of the so-called Charentean culture that oc
cupied an open-air site in Hungary specialized in the exploitation of young cave bears, wild horse was the main quarry of another com munity of this culture in the Hatszeg area somewhat later.
The Charentean industry was distributed not only in the H atszeg but also over the entire southern Carpathian Range as shown by the sites of Pestera in the Toresvar Pass and Baia de Fier in the southern Carpathians.
At the close of the Middle Paleolithic, groups manufacturing bifacial tools retouched over their entire surface made their appearance in Transylvania.
These groups are generally linked to the Szeletien technocomplex in a wider sense. There is no evidence of development from earlier, local industries and thus the presence of bifacially worked points in the Late Charentean can be traced to Szeletien influence.
Only the developed phase of the Aurignacian industry appeared in the second cold stage of the last glaciation. The Aurignacian groups replacing the cave bear hunters of the W iirm 1/2 interstadial have been identified only from seasonal cave campsites. Interestingly enough, it is precisely the
short-lived innovation of the Aurignacians, the projectile point carved from bone, which is lacking from the known tool kits, with the only notable ex
ception being the Late Aurignacian point from Baia de Fier. W orked points of bear hunters have been reported from Csoklovina. The neuro-cranium found on that site suggests that these hunters can be assigned to the proto- Nordic anthropomorphic group (Predmost race).
Beginning with the W iirm 2/3 period, the mammoth and reindeer hunt
ers of the eastern Gravettien seem to have bypassed the area encompassed by the eastern Carpathians. Only two sites in the source region of the Dim- bovifa suggest that these plains hunters had seasonal cave settlements. The tools recovered from Szitabodza too lie on the boundary of Transylvania.
After the retreat of the icesheet from the Carpathians the Transylvanian Basin was again slowly populated. Epigravettien-Tardenoisien sites are only known in southeastern Transylvania, along the upper reaches of the Bodza River. In addition to a variety of tiny blades, points, blade scrapers and small lunate scraper flints these sites have also yielded the characteristic trapezoidal tools of the Tardenoisian culture. At the same time the proto- Europid Rom anello-Azilien groups of the southwestern Carpathians and the Iron Gates region domesticated the dog and may also have tried their hand at the cultivation of wheat and at pig breeding.
This process came to a halt with the arrival of the Kflros-Starcevo popula
tion, an immigrant group from the southern Balkans. They had learned the cultivation of wheat and barley and adopted an animal husbandry based on sheep and goats from Anatolian newcomers in their original homeland.
However, the domestication of millet and of cattle may perhaps be regarded as their own innovation.
Their sites all lie beside watercourses and occasionally on low river ter
races. They built timber-framed houses with wattling subsequently daubed with clay. In addition to ground level houses, semi-subterranean huts have also been uncovered. Their dead were laid to rest within the village. Whereas the Epi-Paleolithic archaic Homo sapiens population buried their dead in an extended, supine position, the predom inantly proto-M editerranean Koros-Starcevo population interred their dead in a contracted position, w ith
out grave goods.
The finds recovered from the Karos settlements reflect an increased de
pendence on food production, but with a wide range of variation between individual sites. The ratio of hunted and domestic animals is roughly equal on some sites, while on others, domestic animals outnumber hunted spe
cies sixfold. Stockbreeding based on cattle appears to have been predomi
nant compared to the previously domesticated sheep and goats. W hile pig breeding was of importance on some sites, other sites are devoid of any evidence of pigs.
A similarly wide range of variation has been noted in the ratio of culti
vated and gathered cereals. The quemstones found on a number of Transyl
vanian sites must undoubtedly have been used for grinding seeds, but not necessarily cereal grains. The lithic assemblages from these sites rarely fea
ture the short blades that could have functioned as inserts in a sickle. The KorOs-Starcevo population nonetheless lived in food-producing com m uni
ties even if hunting and gathering were not always secondary activities. At
the same time, some groups appeared to have specialized in the processing of minerals, which would explain traces of human settlement in caves that had been uninhabited since the Late Pleistocene.
The KorOs-Starcevo population penetrated Transylvania from the Banat.
Their earliest settlements have been reported from Kolozsv&r. Some groups, however, migrated as far as eastern Hungary. These groups then intermixed with the local Epi-Paleolithic population which is why burials of both Al
pine and archaic Homo sapiens type individuals were found at BScstorok.
In accordance with the general practice of that period, the graves were found inside and between the houses of the settlement.
Around 5000 B.C., new groups from this population came to Transylva
nia, advancing slowly along the Maros River. Certain aspects of their mate
rial culture have also been observed in the southern part of the Great Hun
garian Plain. One of their earliest settlements is that uncovered at Sz&sz- herm^ny. The assemblages from this site include coarse vessels of chaff- tempered clay and fine red-slipped bowls, some of which are painted with the white spots of the preceding period. Pottery painting in general, as on the Great Hungarian Plain, was rare in Transylvania. The only other excep
tion is the site of L6cfalu, where polychrome painting also occurred. The early finds share numerous affinities with assemblages from the eastern Balkans, while the final settlement phase has been correlated with the final phase of the Koros-Starcevo sequence.
After a brief transitional period, the arrival of new populations from all directions at the onset of the Middle Neolithic brought an end to the uni
formity characterizing the Early Neolithic. Groups of the V inca-Tordos cul
ture advanced along the middle reaches of the Maros and settled the area between the southern Carpathians and the Erchegyseg (Ore M ountains), with some groups migrating as far east as the Fogaras Mountains. South
eastern Transylvania was occupied by Linear Pottery groups from Moldavia who penetrated as far as the Mez<5seg in the northwest. Sporadic traces of the Szak£lh&t group — distributed over the southeast of the Great H ungar
ian Plain — have been identified along the Szamos River, whilst further to the north we find groups making painted pottery related to that made in the northeastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain.
The ethnic character of the Middle Neolithic defined the course of Transyl
vanian prehistory for a long time, until the close of the Copper Age. The population of the Vinca-Tordos culture, one of the most thoroughly inves
tigated archaeological cultures of this period, after a time abandoned the m ajority of their settlements. The settlement of these peoples in the firc- hegyseg region from the central areas of the Balkan Peninsula is hardly a coincidence: copper artifacts made their appearance at a fairly early date in this region and the gold deposits of nearby Zalatna were among the earliest to be exploited.
The pictographic tablets brought to light at Als6tatarlaka in 1961 which bear a striking resemblance to similar clay tablets from proto-Elamite and proto-Sumerian contexts must be mentioned here. The possibility of direct contact between the two regions, however, is rather problematic since apart from the geographical distance the finds are separated by a gap of about a thousand years from their Mesopotamian counterparts. Early
linear-geo-metric writing systems tend, in any case, independently to resemble each other. At the same time, the Als6tatarlaka tablets, which are undeniably composed of some sort of writing, have permitted the positive identifica
tion of some of the marks (previously suspected to be writing) incised on various clay items of the Vinca-Tordos culture. It would appear that an attempt to introduce writing was, thus, made around 4000 B.C. in the Maros region which is in itself a remarkable achievement. We can at the same time also assum e that a proto-state formation based on some sort of simple cen
tral ceremonial centre developed in this region. Such a political formation in turn could hardly have come about had some groups not begun to ex
ploit the mineral resources of the region and become dependent on the grain and cattle raised by other groups.
Fig. 1. Terracotta tablets from Als6tat3rlaka
The attempts in Transylvania at creating a production economy based on the central redistribution of surplus failed over the long run. The process was interrupted by new population movements. In Moldavia, the areas for
merly settled by Linear Pottery population groups practising a primitive agriculture and animal husbandry (with the ratio of hunted animals as high as 50 per cent) were occupied by groups of the Boian culture from eastern Muntenia whose economy was based on cattle and sheep breeding. Some groups even penetrated the Middle Maros region from the Olt Valley. Their large pots and bowls ornamented with excised triangles and incised bun
dles of lines make an appearance among the settlement finds of the V in ca- Tordos group.
The real break, however, was caused by the migration of the Szamos Painted Pottery population from northern Transylvania along the Maros River. Their vessels, ornamented with red and occasionally black painted motifs against a white or orange background, crop up from time to time among the finds from the upper layers of Vinca-Tordos settlements, sug
gesting a partial mingling of the local population and the newcomers. H ow
ever, few traces of this integration survived in the later archaeological record and therefore it would appear that the greater part of the V inca-Tordos population abandoned its settlements and withdrew along the Maros. 6