History of Croatia before the Croats

The area known as Croatia today has been inhabited throughout the prehistoric period.

In the Stone Age there lived neanderthals in modern Zagorje, northern Croatia. Dragutin Gorjanovic-Kramberger discovered bones and other remnants of a neanderthal on a hill near the town of Krapina that was subsequently named Homo krapiniensis.

In the early Neolithic period, the Starčevo, Vinča and Sopot cultures were scattered around between and around the Sava, the Drava and the Danube. Notable are the excavation sites of Ščitarjevo near Zagreb, Sopot near Vinkovci, Vučedol near Vukovar, Nakovanj on Pelješac. Traces of a somewhat isolated Hvar culture were found on the Adriatic island of Hvar.

The Iron Age left traces of the Hallstatt culture (proto-Illyrians) and the La Tène culture (proto-Celts).

In recorded history, the area was inhabited by the Illyrians, an Indo-European people who spoke the Illyrian language. The Liburn, Iapod i Delmat tribes inhabited various parts of the Adriatic coastline and interior between modern Istria and Herzegovina.

In the 4th century BC the northern parts of modern-day Croatia were also colonized by the Celts, the Scordisci tribe. The islands of Issa and Pharos as well as the locality of Tragurion became had Greek colonies since the same period.

Illyria was a sovereign state until the Romans conquered it two centuries later, in 168 BC. The Romans organized the land into the Roman province of Illyricum which encompassed most of modern Croatia (Istria was part of the province of Italia). Illyricum was subsequently split into the provinces of Pannonia and Dalmatia in year 10.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the Roman roads and the population speaking Romance languages (such as Istro-Romanian or Dalmatian) remained. With the increasing amount of human migration, this population entrenched in the cities along the whole Dalmatian coast.

Forebears of Croatia's current Slav population settled there in the 7th century.