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History of Slovenia


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Prehistory to Slavic settlement.

Slovene territory was inhabited in prehistoric times and there is evidence of human habitation around 250,000 years ago. A pierced cave bear bone, probably the oldest known musical instrument in the world, has been discovered in Divje Babe cave near Cerkno, dating from the Würm glacial age when the area was inhabited by Neanderthals, and the oldest needle, pierced bones, bone points and other artifacts in Potok Cave, a high-elevation Aurignacian (36,000 – 25,000 BP BP) site on Mount Olševa, belonging to the Cro-Magnon. In the Ljubljana Marshes, the remains of pile dwellings, which existed in the region for over 4,500 years, from 5000 to 500 BC, now protected as UNESCO World Heritage Site, have been discovered, as well as the oldest wooden wheel in the world, dated to between 5,100 and 5,350 years ago. In the transition period between the Bronze age to the Iron age, the Urnfield culture flourished. Archeological remains dating from the Hallstatt period have been found particularly in southeastern Slovenia, among them a number of situlas in Novo Mesto, the "Town of Situlas".

In the Iron Age, present-day Slovenia was inhabited by Illyrian and Celtic tribes until the 1st century BC, when the Romans conquered the region establishing the provinces of Pannonia and Noricum. What is now western Slovenia was included directly under Roman Italia as part of the X region Venetia et Histria. The Romans established posts at Emona (Ljubljana), Poetovio (Ptuj) and Celeia (Celje) and constructed trade and military roads that ran across Slovene territory from Italy to Pannonia. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the area was exposed to invasions by the Huns and Germanic tribes during their incursions into Italy. After the departure of the last Germanic tribe – the Lombards – to Italy in 568, the Slavs from the East began to dominate the area with aid from Avars. After the successful resistance against the nomadic Asian Avar
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