# The oldest ruins in Romania

Romania’s heritage list records 3,843 archaeological sites carrying 7,954 dated layers, from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. Very few of them are ruins you can go and look at. The most heavily re-settled place in the country is a hillside in Buzău county, with five settlements and five cemeteries stacked on it — and the Dacians and the Romans are the layers on top.

Marius Comper · 12 September 2026

## Five villages and five cemeteries, on the same hill

On a slope in Pietroasa Mică, Buzău county, called “Pe Căliman”, Romania’s List of Historic Monuments records ten entries: five settlements and five cemeteries, from the Gumelnița culture (fourth millennium BC) to the Dridu culture (ninth and tenth centuries AD). No other named point in the list carries more than two such pairs.

## The count

- located archaeological sites: 3,843
- dated layers: 7,954
- rows in category I of the list: 9,672
- class A sites (national importance): 724
- sites with six or more periods: 64
- sites with a single period: 2,288

## The periods

- Palaeolithic: 68 sites, 78 layers
- Mesolithic: 11 sites, 11 layers
- Neolithic: 490 sites, 535 layers
- Chalcolithic: 351 sites, 405 layers
- Transition to Bronze Age: 72 sites, 77 layers
- Bronze Age: 1,040 sites, 1,160 layers
- Hallstatt: 509 sites, 534 layers
- La Tène: 939 sites, 1,051 layers
- Roman period: 1,182 sites, 1,573 layers
- Late antiquity: 669 sites, 823 layers
- Middle Ages: 1,049 sites, 1,395 layers
- Modern period: 143 sites, 181 layers

## Rome

1,182 sites fall in the Roman band, but the label is chronological: in Moldavia and Wallachia, where Rome never ruled, second- and third-century material is still dated to “the Roman period”. Roman state presence shows in the object: 104 sites with forts, 54 with villae rusticae, 12 with baths, 8 with aqueducts, 6 with amphitheatres, 2 with limes works — 170 sites in all.

## Source

Romania’s List of Historic Monuments, category I (archaeology), 2015 edition and later amendments. Full page: https://mariuscomper.uk/cele-mai-vechi-ruine/en/