The first narrative episode looks at the geography of present-day Romania, then follows the first nomadic peoples that arrived in the area, explains how they became a sedentary tribe called the Getae, and explores their society.

The map for this episode shows the three most important geographic features of the region we’re discussing: the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube River, and the Black Sea.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to A history of Romania.

Season 1, Episode 1: The first steps

I hope you had the chance to listen to the introductory episode to get a sense of the story we’re about to experience. In this first narrative episode, we’ll set the stage for our story by looking at the geography of the region, seeing how modern humans first arrived here, and looking at the societies they developed.

The territory of present-day Romania has three main territorial features: the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube River, and the Black Sea. I’ve drawn a map of the region which you can find linked in this episode’s description, so if you have the opportunity, you can follow along as I describe each feature in turn.

We’ll start with the Carpathian Mountains, which get their name from a tribe called the Carpi. This mountain range is shaped like an arc open towards the West. The top half stretches west towards the Alps, while the bottom half turns south to meet the Danube River. The Carpathians have rugged peaks topped with snow, rocky hills carpeted with flowers, and dense forests home to varied wildlife. It’s in these mountains that the region’s natives, the Dacians, will reach the apex of their civilization.

Next, we have the Danube River, which gets its name from the Indo-European word dānu meaning, well, river. The Danube begins all the way in Germany and flows for thousands of kilometres before intersecting the southern tip of the Carpathian Mountains, where it forms a narrow gorge. Beyond this pass, the river widens, sometimes up to a kilometre in width, and flows east along fertile plains before emptying into the Black Sea. The Danube River will be a source of food, a transport route, and a natural barrier to various peoples in the region from prehistory to the present day.

Finally, we come to the Black Sea, which takes its name from its dark waters. This sea is bordered by the Pontic Steppe to the north, the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and the Anatolian peninsula to the south. Many peoples will sail its waters, and its link to the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorus will be an entry point for many newcomers to our story.

Now that we understand where we are a bit better, let’s start the tale.

Modern humans first arrived in the region of present-day Romania about fifty thousand years ago. These adventurous wanderers got most of their food from hunting; they would follow herds of animals, camp in an area for a few months, hunt, and then move on as the herds migrated. In addition to hunting, these bands of humans would catch fish in nearby rivers and gather plants, fruits, and nuts along the way.

Though they would sometimes settle in caves, most of the time, they lived in shelters built of large branches or mammoth bones draped over with animal skins. Inside, they dug firepits to keep warm, cook food, and refine their stone tools.

When they didn’t have to plan the next hunt or worry about packs of wolves, people in these communities would tell stories, craft jewelry out of bones and stones, make figurines out of clay, sing and dance with each other, and enjoy their well-earned rest.

Around five thousand years ago, the people of this region were exposed to the most impactful innovation ever discovered: agriculture.

For tens of thousands of years, humans knew that wild plants could be sown, nurtured, and harvested, but they could get everything they needed to survive by hunting, fishing, and gathering, so there was no need to become sedentary.

But the rich soil of the Fertile Crescent in modern-day Iraq allowed humans to grow crops in larger quantities than elsewhere. Over thousands of years, curious and determined individuals experimented with sowing and growing plants as their tribes continued their nomadic lifestyle. With time, the trials and failures gave way to consistent results, and these communities were able to reliably grow food from the soil. Eventually, they could grow so much food that they could stay near their plots of land year-round and even put some food aside in storage for periods when crops couldn’t be grown.

Agriculture was still new and imperfect; early farmers only loosened a thin layer of the top soil when they planted their seeds, which quickly drained the land of its nutrients and made it infertile. But the Earth was still vast and unclaimed, and these early farmers could simply migrate to unpopulated regions and grow their crops on new, fertile lands.

And so, communities of farmers slowly migrated out of the Fertile Crescent until they eventually arrived in the region bounded by the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube River, and the Black Sea. These migrants crossed the river with their seeds and domesticated animals and settled in areas frequented by the nomads of the region. Some of the natives fought the migrants to keep their lands, as evidenced by signs of violence found in archeological sites of the period. But most natives welcomed them with goodwill and curiosity; within a few generations, the native population learned and adopted the ways of these migrants, and their descendants became intertwined.

These now-settled communities grew wheat, barley, and millet, and also grazed goats, pigs, sheep, and cattle. Settlements were founded near fresh water, be it on the plains along the Danube, or the hills fed by the rivers of the Carpathian Mountains. Whereas agriculture was easier to practice in the lowlands, animal husbandry developed more in the hills and mountains.

Humans also domesticated horses and made them pull plows to work their fields. As communities permanently settled, men gradually put aside hunting and took over the agricultural work that had, until now, been done by women. It’s at this point that patriarchal structures come to dominate social organization throughout the region, and these structures will persist in various forms for the rest of history.

The surplus food created by farming and animal husbandry exploded the population of these settled peoples above that of their wandering ancestors. With more people and material goods, individuals felt the need to distinguish themselves; society became more hierarchical, with a bigger focus on power and prestige compared to nomadic societies.

These early farmers lived in rectangular huts with walls made of interwoven branches covered with clay, and thatch roofs supported by wooden frames. These huts could house half a dozen people, had a firepit for warmth and cooking, and a storage pit where food was kept in vases.

Villages were centred around the chieftain’s hut, which was bigger than the rest. Here in the village centre, the community would meet, gather for births and marriages, hold funerals, revel and dance at harvesttime, celebrate a return from the hunt or from a war, and perform animal sacrifices to their gods.

Chieftains had to organize common tasks like erecting buildings, clearing forests, preparing fields, and going hunting, as well as the distribution of the food and goods the community produced. Their other main task was to protect the community, and so chieftains directed their people to dig moats and erect palisades, and led warriors in defending their families and homes, be it against wild animals or aggressive humans.

Communities with a common language and shared territory naturally grouped themselves into tribes. These tribes also had common spiritual beliefs that idolized fertility, since their livelihoods didn’t primarily rely on hunting anymore, but on growing crops and grazing animals.

Their religion centred around two figures: the Great Mother and the Bull. The Great Mother represented femininity, which brought fertility and food. The Bull represented masculinity, which brought virility and protection. These two figures were complementary, but there are many more representations of the Great Mother than of the Bull, which suggests that the feminine element of this dual religion was the dominant one.

Besides the feminine and masculine figures, there are also many androgynous ones. For instance, “The lovers” is a statue that depicts two figures: one has female features – the breasts and the pelvic triangle – whereas the other has both female and male attributes – breasts and a penis. Scholars think that these androgynous figures could represent the union of opposites and the concept of wholeness.

Around three thousand BCE, the people in the region of present-day Romania began smelting copper. Humans had begun experimenting with metals while they were still nomads, as curious and creative individuals played around the campfire with interesting rocks they found during their travels. But being settled gave humans more time to experiment with metals, and copper was the easiest one to find and manipulate.

If you combine copper with tin – as humans first did accidentally – you get an alloy called bronze. This metal is harder than copper and has a lower melting point, which makes it easier to work with and creates better tools.

Humans extracted copper and tin ore from surface deposits and melted them on-site, then shaped them into lumps. These concentrated metal lumps were then transported to villages where trained artisans melted, moulded, and hammered them into tools, weapons, and jewellery.

The Carpathian Mountains had easy access to copper and tin, and so the region developed into a huge centre for bronze production. One site was discovered to have 5,812 bronze pieces, making it one of the largest bronze worksites in Europe. Bronze objects – and especially war axes – were traded in all directions, spreading east towards the Dniester River, south beyond the Danube, and west towards the Alps.

But bronze would soon be replaced by an even better metal: iron.  Artisans in the Aegean region to the south had learned how to extract and process iron, and, through trade, their knowledge slowly made its way north by about 1,100 BCE.

Iron is more abundant than copper and tin, and so is easier to find; it also makes tools that are harder and more resistant. The natives of the region soon adopted the new metal, and iron tools quickly began to replace bronze ones. Within a few generations, sickles, plows, hammers, knives, pots, spears, and swords were all made of iron; bronze was relegated to jewellery and vases.

And now we arrive at the beginning of history, as we get the first written sources about the peoples of this region.

Between the Aegean Sea and the Carpathian Mountains lived the Thracians, a people that were mentioned all the way back in the Iliad. The Greek historian Herodotus relates that the Thracians were the most numerous people known to the Greeks, and we know the names of over a hundred of their tribes.

A subset of the Thracians called the Getae lived on the plains south of the Danube River. In the 5^th century BCE, Herodotus travelled to the coast of the Black Sea and there gathered information on them. He learned that the Getae worshipped a god named Zalmoxis. The religion of these people is one of the only topics which Herodotus explores in detail. He says:

“Zalmoxis was in fact a human being, a slave on Samos, where his master was Pythagoras. On becoming a free man, he amassed considerable riches; and then, having made his fortune, returned to his native land. Now, the Thracians are a people as backward as their lives are harsh, while Zalmoxis, who was familiar with the far more sophisticated lifestyle and customs of the Ionians, had been constantly in the company of Greeks – and in particular of Pythagoras, who was hardly the most backward of sages. Once Zalmoxis had furnished a banqueting hall, he played host to all the leading men of the town, and even as he wined and dined them, taught them that neither he nor any of his fellow drinkers nor any of their descendants would ever die, but would instead go to a place where they would exist forevermore and enjoy every kind of blessing. But all the while, even as he was holding the aforementioned banquets and saying these things, he was building an underground lair. Then, once it was fully furnished, he vanished from the sight of the Thracians and went down into his lair, where he lived for three years. The Thracians duly missed him and mourned him as though he were dead. Three years on, however, Zalmoxis appeared back before their gaze – thereby confirming everything that he had said.”

It’s a great story, but even Herodotus doubts it; he says that Zalmoxis probably lived well before Pythagoras. Though the timeline and details may be inaccurate, the beliefs which Herodotus shares with us are anchored in truth.

The later Greek geographer Strabo mentions that the cave in which Zalmoxis hid was in a mountain near the later capital of the Dacians, Sarmizegetusa.

Near these mountains were found seven sanctuaries pointing north-west and surrounded by parallel circles of wood and stone columns. The best guess scholars have is that each of these sanctuaries was devoted to a different god, and that they were used as calendars as well as to make astronomical observations. But we have no written sources and little archeological evidence. Only the foundations of these sanctuaries remain; we’re missing their interiors and their decorations, so we can’t know anything for certain; it’d be like trying to explain Islam just by looking at the ruins of a mosque.

But we do have some more information from Herodotus. He says the Getae believed that they could become immortal by worshipping Zalmoxis, and that they incinerated their dead and spread their ashes over land and water.

Though details are scarce, the Getae may have worshipped a few other gods and goddesses besides Zalmoxis. One was a goddess of the hearth and sacred fire. Another was a god of war. The Getae sacrificed to him the first animals they hunted as well as prisoners of war, though animal sacrifices were much more common than human ones.

Strabo mentions that the Getae had a high priest that advised the ruler. There was also an elite caste of worshippers called “those who walk through smoke” who were vegetarian and celibate.

Every five years, a person was chosen as a messenger to Zalmoxis and given a list of requests from the community. Those who walk through smoke held the messenger by his hands and feet and tossed him over spears; if he was impaled and died, then the Getae considered that Zalmoxis would look favorably on their request; if he survived, the messenger was blamed as an impious man, and another messenger was chosen.

The Getae would continue to develop their culture and grow their communities. Villagers would harvest crops and graze animals generation after generation; priests would seek guidance from the divine to counsel their chieftains; tribes would sometimes come together to trade and collaborate and other times go to war against each other for gain and glory; and the common people would work as they needed and celebrate when they could. But the Getae would not stay isolated forever, and their world would soon change forever.

South far beyond familiar plains and rivers, an adventurous people were streaming out of their homeland looking for new lands to settle. Join me for the next episode in two weeks when the Getae will be greeted by ships on the horizon as these newcomers, the Greeks, head towards the shores of the Black Sea.