Some seven thousand years ago, a Neolithic people came boiling out of the Black Sea Basin. A minor shift in climate, a small warming of four degrees, caused a significant rise in the ocean level. At some point, the water began to spill through the Bosporus and into the low-lying area to the north and east. Driven from their hunting and gathering territories by the rapidly rising salt water, they fled along the most convenient corridor. This was the Danube Valley.

The second longest river in Europe, the Danube stretches almost 1,750 miles from the Black Forest of southern Germany to the Black Sea coast in Romania. From its humble beginning with the joining of the Brega and the Brigach, it flows through a series of broad and fertile valleys. At only two places in it's entire course does the river have rapids or cataracts. One is the famous "Iron Gate" in the Transylvanian Alps. The other is where it flows through the gap between theAustrian Alps and the Carpathians, near the Austro-Hungarian border. There are six major tributory rivers which flow into the Danube. These are the Sava, Drava, Tisza, Oltul, Siretul and the Prut. Together, these rivers have a combined length of nearly 3,000 miles, and drain an area of 300,000 square miles.


The immigrants followed the paths of least resistance, along the main watrcourse and its many tributaries. Gradually, the families and clans sorted themselves out into tribes. We are unsure what they might have called themselves. We have only the names given to them by the Greeks and the Romans, and at a much later date. We do know they had a common language, call it Proto-Celtic, and a set of common religious beliefs. They left behind a series of place-names which, though filtered through many changes in the language, are still recognizeable. Most notable is the names of the river, itself. Danube… Donau… Dona… Danu. Danu was the Mother Goddess of the Goidelic Celts, while the Brythonic Celts call her Don. Did they give her name to the river, or was the river their "Mother"? At this late date, it is not easy to say.

What we do know is that by 3,000 BC, the Celtic peoples essentially dominated the Danube valley. They had moved from a nomadic life of hunting and gathering to a more settled style of agriculture. Settlements began to form and grow at important gathering places. Stone tools and implements, primative pottery and a few post-holes from their wooden dwellings are about all that remains of this period.

Where were these settlements? One place to look is beneath the ruins of Roman garrisons in the valley. Without a doubt, the Romans established their forts and cities of the Empire at the places where the native peoples were. Aquincum, (modern Buda, of Buda-Pest) was one of these places. Vindabona (Vienna) was another, as was Singidunum (Belgrade). Prior to the coming of the Romans, Aquincum appears to have been the main settlement (Oppidium) of the Eravisci Tribe, while Singidunum appears to have been the porvince of the Scordisci. For Vindobona, the researchers are not too clear. The resident tribe was most probably the Boii, the Cotini, or the Volcae Tectosages.

One place the romans did not reach was a mountainous settlement near the headwaters of the Danube. The Heuneburg has been slowly excavated over a period of 120 years. The evidence shows this hill was occupied since the third millenium BC, from Neolithic hunters to Iron-Age agrarians. The site includes a Hill-fort of 3.3 hectares and a surrounding settlement of at least 20 hectares.