PREHISTORIC
PART 1 – Ch.I
The Quaternary era – the Paleolithic
period
The first inhabitants of
The primitive material and moral
civilization in Europe
When studying the prehistoric
times of the countries from the Carpathians and the Lower Danube, an ancient
disappeared world, the cradle of the ante-Hellenic
civilization, presents itself before our eyes. Behind the populations known
in Greco-Roman antiquity under the name of Getae
and Dacians, stretches back a long
series of several thousand years, a buried history of some great events, whose
importance had reached far beyond the horizon of this country, the history of a
nation, genial, powerful and glorious, who, long before the Trojan times, had
founded the first vast world empire, had founded the first cultural unity in
Europe and had at the same time established a basis for the moral and material
progress in western Asia and in north Africa.
Dacia, this country
miraculously endowed by nature with all the goodness of the climate and soil,
the work of remote geological times, had formed the first place perfect for the
settling and development of the moral and industrial life of the migratory
nations. Dacia, during the history of these dark ages, appears as the first
geographical metropolis destined, by its particular position, by the abundance
of its population and by the diversity of its riches, to extend during the
prehistoric epoch, its ethnic and cultural influence, on one hand towards
south, in the Balkan peninsula and beyond the Aegean Sea, and on the other hand
towards west, on the great and long communication waterway of the Danube.
The civilizing
action exercised by the prehistoric ante-Dacian population from the Carpathians
and the Lower Danube, over the ante-Hellenic world, was much greater than we
can imagine today, on the basis of fragments of monuments and of historical and
folkloric traditions which we have from this extremely remote epoch.
In this regard we
are now only at the dawn of prehistoric science [1].
[1. TN – Densusianu starts the
footnotes by presenting the classification of the prehistoric epochs as they
existed at his time: Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron, and their
characteristics, after which he says: “From a chronological point of view, the
Paleolithic period corresponds with the quaternary era of the geologists and
with that part of the tertiary epoch, in the deposits of which we find stone
objects, supposed to have been cut by an intelligent being. And the beginning
of the Neolithic period corresponds with the disappearance of the “tarand stag”
from the central and western parts of Europe.
In the countries of ancient Dacia, the intermediary epoch of
copper follows immediately after the Neolithic. This stage is characterized
by tools and weapons made of pure copper. Most of these artifacts of copper
have the shape of the stone tools (Pulszky,
Die Kupferzeit in Ungarn.Budapest,1884)”. The author presents then the
different archaeological divisions of the Stone Age (Chellean, Musterian,
Solutre and Magdalene), and also adds a table with these divisions. Speaking
about the duration of the Quaternary epoch, he says that science could not yet
fix the duration of the geological epochs with at least an approximate
chronology, but that the doctrine about a lent and regular action of physical
forces and agents was prevalent at his time].
We start here the
study of these primitive and mysterious times – and we will tread a very new
and difficult road - regarding the first beginnings of the civilization in
Dacia.
The first question
presented here is, in which epoch appear in the countries of Dacia the first
traces of human existence?
Today, owing to
tireless investigations made lately by the three sister sciences, geology,
paleontology and prehistoric archaeology, it is certain and incontestable that
man was scattered over a large part of the surface of our globe even in the
first times of the quaternary epoch (Cartailhac,
La France prehistorique Paris1889 pag.34); that he was contemporary almost in
all the countries of Europe, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, England, Italy
and Russia, with the great mammals extinguished since the flood; that in this
epoch man did not know the use of metals and had no other better tools than
those of roughly cut stone, and animal bones, worked in a totally primitive
shape. Or, in other words: today the prehistoric science has definitely
established that in Europe man lived and witnessed the phenomena which
characterized the entire quaternary epoch. He saw the violent actions of nature
in those remote times, he lived when great masses of glaciers covered the high
mountains, the valleys and even part of the plains of Europe; he contemplated
the flood and its consequences and assisted to the last mountain lifting action
of the earth, when different chains of mountains rose and lengthened [2].
[2. A Romanian geological tradition. In Romanian folk tales there is
often presented a vague memory about the mountain building movements which took
place in remote geological epochs, when the mountain chains lengthened and hit
each other. This phenomenon is characterized in ancient traditions of the
Romanian people by the words “when/
where the mountains beat their heads” (Ispirescu,
Legends 1882 p.126; Fundescu, Tales
1875 p.35, etc). The geological science today has decided that different
mountain chains, even the same mountain unit, were not formed at once, but were
the consequence of many repeated mountain building upheavals, so the mountains
which beat their heads remind us the consecutive lifting, crashing and smashing
of the solid crust of the earth, happened during the geological epochs. This
tradition, that mountains are a later formation of the earth crust is also
found in Hesiodus’ Theogony
(v.126-129). There exists even today a very widely spread tradition with the
Romanian people, that in the beginning
the earth was flat, without hills and mountains. This tradition has a
semi-religious form. It is sung in carols and it attributes the lifting of the
hills and mountains to St. Ion and Mos Ajun (TN – Old man eve/ referring to
Christmas), (both identical with Ianus of the Romans).
That too-high God, let
me (Ion-Sant-Ion) measure the earth,
The earth with the walking, the sky with
the rod…,
I found too much earth, I pushed it,
I made hills, I made valleys,
I made beautiful
mountains, covered with snow.
(Communicated by Gr.Craciunas, Ciubanca, Transylvania)
We are two little
angels, sent by God,
to measure the earth, and we found
too much.
We wander, what are we
to do? Then Mos-Ajun said:
High dark mountains, deep valleys,
cold springs!
(Communicated from Baltati, Ramnicul-Sarat district)]
In those remote
geological times begin the first pages of man’s history in Dacia. We admit that
until today, in the alluvial deposits of Dacia have not been found yet the
bones of the quaternary man, but other important traces of his existence and
activity have been discovered. From these finds we form the immovable
conviction, that man lived in part of Dacia’s countries at a time, when his
miserable life conditions made him to fight with the gigantic bear and the
ferocious lion for the occupation of the caves; when he, for the improvement of
his material life, was forced to chase the wild horse, to catch the furious ox
and to attack the mammoth and so many other powerful and ferocious animals,
without other weapons but those he made owing to his intelligence [3].
[3. The cave lion (Felis spelaea) in the eastern parts of
In our old heroic folk poetry (in carols, which is one of the most antique
type of our folk poetry, also in the folk spells) there exist even today
different traditions about the European
lion.
“The lion with the lioness, Samca
with Samcoaica” says one spell. In ancient Indian language, simha means lion. With the Romans, samca is the name given in prehistoric
times to the leopard. In our heroic songs are also mentioned the lions which
once existed in the lands of the Nister,
especially in the wastelands of Lower
Basarabia, which in Roman times was called the desert of the Getae (Alecsandri, Folk poems p.77; Teodorescu, Folk poems p.446).
The primitive ox (bos primigenius),
contemporary with the quaternary man, had a gigantic size, almost twice bigger
than our domestic ox, and belonged to the hoary race of cattle, which lives
today in the Romanian countries, Transylvania, Hungary, Stiria and Russia. The
race of wild oxen lived in our parts
until historical times. Herodotus
relates the following: There are in these parts of Macedonia (Rhodopi and
Pindus) a lot of lions and wild oxen. The horns of these oxen are of a giant
size, and they are imported into Greece as a commercial article (l.VII.126).
This wild ox, about which Herodotus speaks, is shown having a particular
natural vigor, on the gold vases discovered at Vaphio near
Cesar, who
in the interest of his vast plans for the expansion of Roman domination, had
been the first to study from a military point of view, the lands from north of
the Danube, communicates to us in his Commentaries the following: “There still
exists in Germany another species of
oxen (wild), which are called Uri.
These oxen (urii), are a little smaller than the elephants, but by shape, color
and type they resemble the bulls. Their strength is big and big is their speed.
They don’t spare either men, or wild animals, once they see them. The people
dig pits in the earth, following a certain system, in order to catch them and then
they kill them in these same pits (B.G.VI.28)”. Isidor, the bishop of Seville (d.636), also writes: “Urii are a species of wild oxen of Germany, that have enormous horns,
which are used for drinking vessels for royal tables, their inner capacity
being very big (Etym.XII.1.34)”. As we know, the Getae also used oxen horns as
drinking vessels for drinking wine (Diodorus
Siculus, lib.XXX.c.12).
And the naturalist Pliny (VIII.15) transmits the following
note about the fauna of Scythia and
Germany: “Scythia produces very few animals because here the bushes are
missing. Few animals also are found in Germany, country which is a neighbor of
Scythia. But in Germany are important the species of wild oxen, meaning bisons
with manes, and urii, which have an
extraordinary force and velocity and which the ignorant people call wild buffaloes (bubali)”. As we know, Great Germany or “barbarian”
In the oldest examples of our folk literature,
carols and ballads, the primitive ox (bos primigenius, bos urus) appear under
the name of boul sur (Mandrescu, Folk lit. p.212; Daul, Carols p.41). The epithet “sur” is a Romanian archaism from the
same family as urus of the Celts,
and has the meaning of wild or of the mountain. The coats of arms of
Moldova show the figure of the urus head (bo-ur),
and not at all of the bison with mane (Boliac,
Buciumul, An.I, 1862, p.132).
Cervus megaceros in Romanian traditions –
Among the different species of the fauna of the quaternary epoch, which
populated in big part the plains and mountains of Dacia in that epoch, was also
the so-called cervus megaceros. This antediluvian deer (stag), the most
magnificent animal of the vanished fauna, lived in Europe and especially in
Ireland, until the 12th century of our era. Its arched and proud
horns were gigantic and gave it a very imposing aspect. It is mentioned in Homer’s Iliad (XVI 158) and Odyssey (X
158). Ulysses chases in the wide island of the nymph Circe, a big stag with
lofty horns, a gigantic monster.
Different traditions about cervus megaceros have been conserved until today in
our old folk literature. So, in the semi-religious carols of the Romanian
people, it is often mentioned a noble and proud stag called Cerbul sur, which, by its beauty, size
and qualities attributed to it, can not be other than the most majestic stag
that had existed at any time on the face of the earth, cervus megaceros (Teodorescu, Folk poems, p. 65-66). The
speed of this giant stag being very big, the hunters in the Romanian carols
pray to God, to send a rain, to soften the earth, to trap the stag in mud so
that they could catch it. This Romanian tradition about the way of chasing the
giant stag, clarifies for us a very curious fact which the paleontologists
could not explain so far. In Hungary,
most of the skeletons of cervus megaceros were found in the clay strata near
the banks of Tisa. And in Ireland,
as Figuier tells us (La terre avant
le deluge.1863.p.321), the skeletons of this antique animal are found in the
swampy deposits near Curragh, and it can be remarked, says he, that almost all
these skeletons are found in the same attitude, with the head raised upwards,
the neck stretched, the horns thrown backwards, as if the animal had been
trapped in a swampy terrain and had tried to breathe until the last moment of
its life. The epithet of “sur” often
applied to this antique stag, is usually used, in Romanian folk tales and
poems, only for the gigantic or uncanny animals, for example “boul sur”,
“taurul sur”, “vultur sur” or “sur-vultur” (Teodorescu, Poems, p.68; Marienescu,
Carols, p.26; Marian, Romanian
funerals, p.217; Saineanu,
Tales,p.375, 388). This epithet belongs to the archaic Romanian language and is
not only synonymous, but identical with the Celtic urus, with the Pelasgian aspiration s added at the beginning. So, from the point of view of its
meaning, cerbul sur means only cerbul codrului (TN – the stag of the
woods)].
The material proof
in this regard is offered by the finds of the primitive tool industry of the
people belonging to this epoch. On the territory of the town Miscolti, situated at the feet of the
northern Carpathians, in the upper parts of
[4. The inner sea in the countries of
When we state here, from a
palaeontological and archaeological point of view, the existence of humans in
the lands of Dacia, even since the quaternary epoch, we don’t want to assert by
this that all the regions of this country, as they present themselves today,
could have been inhabited by man in that remote epoch. The physiognomy of the
countries of Dacia has not always been the same as in the historical epoch. A
significant part of the extended plains of Hungary were, even at the beginning
of the Neolithic period, covered by large masses of fresh water, which little
by little, during the course of several thousands of years, have retreated
through the cataracts of the Danube and even maybe through subterranean
channels. Even today, a significant district in the north-east of
On another hand, the historical
documents of Middle Age Hungary mention often different swamps, lakes and
marshes in the Tiso-Danubian basin, which in those times were called Mortua, Mortva and Mortua magna, meaning dead water. Even the name Mures, of the principal river of
Transylvania, which appears in the medieval historical documents under the name
Morisius (Cod.Arpadianus, XVIII 62.
1291), Marusius (Kemeny, Nititia,
II.41), Morusius (Schuller,
Archiv.I.p680), is evidence that in a remote time the basin of this river was
only a dead water (Marusa). And on another hand, there still exists in
“This Pombie (Pompei the Great), cut
the bridge at Byzantium, so that the black sea entered into the white sea and it is told that the countries of Moldova,
Muntenia and Ardel were left dry” (Ar.Densusianu, Revista critica literara
1893, p367).
This tradition, that in a remote
epoch the Black Sea had no issue, was first stated by Strato from Lampsac (d.270bc). The Black Sea, maintains he, might
have once been completely closed, and the strait at Byzantium might have opened
because of the enormous pressure of the masses of water brought in the Euxine
Pontus by the great rivers. The same may have happened also, says he, with the
Mediterranean Sea, which, following a great accumulation of river waters, might
have broken the western barrier, and, following its flowing into the external
sea, the former swampy places of Europe might have drained (Strabo, Geogr.I.3.4).
Another tradition, identical in fact
with that of Brancovici’s chronicle, is communicated from the village Habud, in
the Prahova district: A long time
ago, the land of this country, this tradition tells us, was covered with water, which could never drain, because at there was
a rock mountain at the Black Sea. The Turks (Thracians, Trojans?) started to
cut that mountain. They dug for twenty four years and still could not finish,
but a great earthquake came and broke that mountain in two, and immediately the
water drained in the sea. Finally, another tradition is transmitted from Banat,
Maidan village: “We heard from our elders that the land which we inhabit now,
might have once been a sea of water, and only in the mountains dwelt some wild men, whom our ancestors defeated,
then settled here. Our king Trajan opened the way for the water here, at Babacaia. (Baba Caia, Caia the Old
Woman). We note that in Romanian traditions Hercules also appears often under
the name Trojan). When there was water here, the people got about in boats and
sailboats. It is said that the “cula” (TN - a fortified house) from Verset
might have been built in those times. One could see from there to another
“cula” across the Danube, and to another, across the Mures; when an enemy boat
came, a big light was made on top of the “cula”, to let the other brothers know
that the enemy had entered the country”. We also note here that in Hungary
there still exists a folk tradition that the plains of that country were once
covered by water, which later had drained through the strait of the Iron Gates
(Ertekezesek)].
But what were the
situation, customs and conditions of life of the Paleolithic human races in
Europe? We are presented here with one of the most important, and at the same
time, most complicated questions of primitive European ethnology.
The scientific
results offered by the palaeontological research done until today, in the
geological strata of the quaternary epoch in Europe, present two human
principal races, on different scales of their physical and intellectual
development.
One of these two fossil races is represented by a portion
of cranium exhumed in 1700 at Cannstadt
near Stuttgart, and by another important specimen, the cranium found in 1856 in
the cave from Neanderthal near
Dusseldorf. Both these human fossils present, from an anthropological point of
view, the same ethnic characteristics and they figure in the science of today
under the generally adopted name of the
race of Neanderthal, which is considered as the human European race from
the epoch of the mammoth. This primitive human race generally presents a
dolycho-platy-cephalic, or a longish and depressed head, a narrow and sloping
forehead and extremely developed brow ridges. The people of Neanderthal or
Cannstadt had a stature more small than high; they were robust and stocky, with
short and muscular members, but, according to the opinions of today’s
anthropologists, they were unable to sustain a vertical position, but were half
bent towards the knees, exactly like the anthropoids (Cartailhac, La France prehistorique, p.328; Fraipont, Les caverns et leurs habitants, 1896, p.69; Bertrand, La Gaule avant les Gaulois,
p.70; De Mortillet, Musee
prehistorique, Pl.XXX). Still to this primitive human species from the mammoth
epoch, belong the fossil bones discovered in 1866 in the cave from Spy in
Belgium. The skeletons exhumed at Spy present the same anatomical
particularities of the craniums from Cannstadt and Neanderthal. Even more, the
cranium from Spy exaggerates some of the physical characteristics of the fossil
man of Neanderthal (Cartailhac, La
To these primitive
inhabitants of
Then (the first
times of human history), the human genus was much tougher. During the course of
several thousand years of the sun’s rotation on the sky, they lived everywhere
like wild animals. They did not know the use of fire, or the use of animal skins,
or to cover their body with the furs of wild animals, but they dwelt in
forests, in the caves of the mountains, in the great woods, hiding under bushes
their dirty members, or when they were forced to defend themselves or to
shelter themselves from wind and rain. They were incapable to think about
common work and did not know to establish among themselves some customs, or
laws, but one grabbed the prey one could, and ran away with it, led by one’s
instinct to take care of one and to live for one.
We find the same
prehistoric tradition with the ancient Latin people, which Virgil (Aeneid. lib.VIII.v.314) communicates to us. Once, says he,
dwelt in these woods a race of humans born from the tough trunks of the oak
trees (the Fauns). They had no customs, or religion. They did not know how to
yoke the oxen, how to gather wealth for life’s needs, or how to keep what they
had gained, but lived like savages, eating only grasses and game [5].
[5. The primitive human race of the Satyrs in
The Greek and Roman antique
literature has transmitted a long series of ethnographical traditions,
regarding a human primitive race called of the Satyrs. So, Hesiodus
mentions in one of his fragments, a type of wicked men called Satyrs, who were incapable to learn any human type of work.
These Satyrs appear generally with a human figure, but wild and tough, with
bristle hair, flat and snub nose, pointed ears, knotted neck and a tuft of long
hairs hanging at the lower end of the spine (more an exaggeration of the Greek
artists) (Frag. XCI). These Satyrs dwelt in woods and mountains and are shown
as lascivious lovers of women. These Satyrs were also called Seilenoi,
sing. Seilenos, word which by its etymology is identical with Silvanus. In Romanian silha = forest. In these places, writes
Lucretius once dwelt the Satyrs, who, with their noise and games
broke the quiet silence of the night (De rer. Nat. IV. 582). This primitive
human race of the Satyrs is also mentioned in the old geographical descriptions
of
“The big man came, from
the big woods, hairy man and
frightful,
With hairy hands, and hairy
legs, with bulging eyes and big pointy
teeth,
With big face, with terrible look. And he came…”
(Marian, Spells, p.242)
This hairy man, with big pointy
teeth and terrible look, who dwelt in woods, bears also in Romanian traditions
the name “Mos” (TN – Old man).
“Mosu comes out of a house, with hairy hands, with hairy
legs, with hairy nails, with hairy fingers…”
(Sezatoarea, An.III, 1894, p.119)
And we have to note that in the
ritual of these spells are usually used stone implements. A clear proof that
this hairy man belonged to the ante-metallic epoch (Sezatoarea, An 1892, p.83).
In the southeast parts of
The second fossil human race from the
quaternary epoch, is represented by the craniums and bones discovered firstly
in the station Cro-Magnon, in the Vezere valley in France.
This human race, to
which was it was applied the name of Cro-Magnon,
dominates definitely in the western parts of Europe, towards the end of the quaternary
epoch, and from a physical and intellectual point of view, appears to have been
much more superior than the race of Neanderthal. The Cro-Magnon men were,
according to the palaeontological studies, a fine dolycho-cephalic race,
powerful and intelligent. They differed from the Neanderthal-Cannstadt-Spy
race, especially by a wide and vertical forehead, by the dimensions of the
cranium, by the lack of brow ridges, by a face also wide, and by a tall stature
of 178-185cm for men (Cartailhac, La
France prehistorique, p.105, 330; De
Mortillet, Musee prehistorique, Pl.XXX; Bertrand, La Gaule avant les Gaulois, p.69, 267; Fraipont, Les caverns et leurs
habitants, p.131). Everywhere, the fossil race of Cro-Magnon, judging by its
intelligent type, by the remains of its tool industry and by its conditions of
living, possessed a significant level of civilization. Apart from cutting the
stone, which presents a number of various forms, the primitive civilization of
the Cro-Magnon is also characterized by an extensive development of the
artifacts of animal bones and horns. Even more, some tribes of this race
possessed a very developed inclination for engraving and sculpture. Finally,
the people of Cro-Magnon knew a rudimentary art of making clay pots (Fraipont, Les caverns et leurs
habitants, p.102; Bertrand, La Gaule
avant les Gaulois, p.112), and there are even some indications that they had
begun to also know the importance of some cereals, like the oats and wheat.
Other characteristic feature of this quaternary race, was its tendency,
manifested under different forms, to tame some animal species. In the
Paleolithic sites of this population appear the first traces of
semi-domestication of some animals, the horse, ox and the “tarand stag” (deer)
[6].
[6. The horse appears as domestic
even in the Solutre epoch. On different quaternary engravings it is represented
with the rein in his mouth. On a horn fragment discovered in
This fossil race of
Cro-Magnon, which appears even in the quaternary epoch, in a remarkable
physical development, can not in any case to be considered as an improvement of
the European type of Neanderthal. On the contrary, all their physical and moral
qualities show the people of Cro-Magnon to have been more of an invasionary
race.
In any case though,
the time of the appearance of this prehistoric race in
We therefore
establish that:
The human period in
Or, in other words,
before the Abii and Agavii, mentioned by Homer’s Iliad, before the Titans,
mentioned by Hesiodus, there lived in the countries of Europe and in Dacia in
particular, two human races, with different types and customs, one on the most
inferior level of physical and intellectual development, the Neanderthal race,
a type of people without society, customs and laws, whose origin we do not
know; and another invasionary human race, entirely different from the first
one, having a superior body constitution and being on a significant grade of
semi-civilization, a woodland population, whose migrations and cultural
beginnings happened far beyond the quaternary times. These two human quaternary
races were then overtaken, defeated and destroyed, and maybe in a small part
assimilated, by the new invaders of the Neolithic epoch. Their moral and
natural history finishes with the quaternary epoch. They had no more influence
on the following epochs.
(TN – I must add
here, at the end of this chapter, some very recent news.
On