According to thesciencetutor, Romania is a state of central-eastern Europe (238,391 km²) included in the Balkan Peninsula. Capital: Bucharest. Administrative division: districts (41) and a municipality (Bucharest). Population: 19.947.311 (2014 estimate). Language: Romanian. Religion: Orthodox 86.8%, Protestants 6.7%, Catholics 5.6%, Muslims 0.3%, others 0.6%. Monetary unit: leu (100 bani). Human Development Index: 0.785 (54th place). Borders: Ukraine and Moldova (N-NE), Hungary (NW), Serbia and Montenegro (SW), Bulgaria (S), Black Sea (SELF). Member of: CEFTA, Council of Europe, EBRD, NATO, UN, OSCE, EU and WTO.
HISTORY: PREHISTORY
Scarce and still uncertain, in terms of location, dating and interpretation, are the most ancient evidences of human presence in the territory of Romania, such as the materials floating on pebbles and some double-sided, coming from the floods of the Dirjov stream, or similar artifacts found in the Valea Muierii valley and Fàrcasele, W of the Olt river, or, finally, the reports to Graunceanu (Bugiulesti village) of Villafranchian faunas, which according to some authors would show traces of intentional fractures and of rare stones of foreign origin to the deposit. At Mousterian typical age Würmian refer some contexts Levallois technique with the presence of foliate tips, such as Ripiceni-Izvor and Baia de Fier. As far as the Upper Paleolithic is concerned, Aurignacian complexes are represented by the Ceahlau-Dirtu group, in the Bistrita valley, dating from 14 C to 23,500 ± 2850 BC. C., in the region of Oas and Banat, the latter with late aspects represented by the frequency of marginal retouching lamellae and the predominance of scratchers. Some sites belong to a more recent phase of the Upper Paleolithic, such as Buda-Dealul Vici and Buda Lespezi (14 C = 16.070-15.670 BC), with industry on blades, burins and scratchers and fauna mainly represented by reindeer and horse, which fall under the so-called Molodovian, facies between ca. 23,000 and 10,000 years from now. In some stations it has been ascertained the attendance of prehistoric people from the Palaeolithic to the Metal Age, such as in Cluj, Iasi and Pestera Hotilor. Even more abundant are the testimonies of Neolithic times given by ceramic remains and bottoms of huts and necropolis, brought to light among other things in Boianand Cucuteni from which important cultures spread in the Danubian environment take their name; also noteworthy are the findings of Gulmenita and Habasesti which present, among other things, anthropomorphic clay statuettes. The Metal Age saw various cultural aspects flourish in many localities including Cîlnic, Costisa, Coţofeni, otomano for the ‘ Bronze Age and Ferigile, Lapus, Bîrsesti and Băiceni for the’ Iron Age during which the presence Scythian and scito- Thracian is attested by stone statues of the Dobruja (sec. VI-V. C.) and from gold treasures (gold helmet from Poiana Prahova to the National Museum of Bucharest) and silver of the century. IV a. C. with griffins and other fantastic animals; follows, from the century. III a. C., the Celtic moment characterized by bronze helmets and statuettes.
HISTORY: THE ROMANS AND THE MIDDLE AGES
The first populations settled on the territory of present-day Romania of which there is historical news were those of the Getae, or Dacians, who in the century. II a. C. constituted a kingdom mentioned by Greek and Roman authors; towards the middle of the century. I a. C. the Dacian kingdom was already considered by Rome, in full expansion in the Balkan Peninsula, as a serious opponent, and Julius Caesar himself was planning a military campaign against it when he was killed. In the same years the Dacian kingdom also suffered a serious internal crisis with the killing of King Burebista and the subsequent partition into smaller principalities, which would reunite only a century later, under the hegemony of King Decebalus – who was also the last king of the Dacians, being defeated by the armies of the Trajan in 106 d. C. From that moment Dacia was incorporated into the Roman empire (which thus reached its maximum territorial expansion in Europe); but the region was also the first to be formally abandoned by the Romans, in 271, due to the increasingly massive and irresistible invasions of the Goths. Thus began a very long Middle Ages, ca. a thousand years of successive invasions and dominations by peoples who came from N and E: to the Goths, rulers from 271 to the beginning of the century. IV, the Huns succeeded and remained for approx. a century; then came the tribes of the Gepids and those of the Avars, who held the territory until the beginning of the century. VII; it was then the turn of the invasions of the Bulgarians, the Magyars, the Peceneghi – which more than replacing each other overlapped and gradually mixed with the previous rulers – and finally, now in the century. XIII, the invasions of the Mongols and the Tartars arrived. Throughout this period, however, the neighboring Byzantium empire continued to exert a strong cultural and religious influence on the territory, even if not a politico-military control; the population always remained Christian, with a church obeying the Patriarch of Constantinople.
