Editing Skopje (section)

=== Origins ===

The rocky promontory on which [[Skopje Fortress]] stands was the first site to be settled in Skopje. The earliest vestiges of human inhabitance found on this site date from the [[Chalcolithic]] ([[4th millennium BC]]).<ref name="kalepre">{{cite web |url=http://www.skopskokale.com.mk/en/prehistory.php |title=Prehistoric Kale |publisher=Archaeological exavations Skopsko Kale |year=2007 |access-date=6 October 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304134515/http://www.skopskokale.com.mk/en/prehistory.php |archive-date=4 March 2012}}</ref>

Although the Chalcolithic settlement must have been of some significance, it declined during the [[Bronze Age]]. Archeological research suggests that the settlement always belonged to the same culture, which progressively evolved due to contacts with [[Balkan]] and [[Danube]] cultures, and later with the [[Aegean culture|Aegean]]. The locality eventually disappeared during the [[Iron Age]]<ref name="kaleant">{{cite web |url=http://www.skopskokale.com.mk/en/antiquty.php |title=Kale in the antiquity |publisher=Archaeological exavations Skopsko Kale |year=2007 |access-date=6 October 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120212053952/http://www.skopskokale.com.mk/en/antiquty.php |archive-date=12 February 2012}}</ref> when [[Scupi]] emerged on Zajčev Rid hill, some {{cvt|5|km}} west of the fortress promontory. At the centre of the Balkan peninsula and on the road between the Danube and [[Aegean Sea]],<ref name="provincial">{{Cite book |title=Provincial at Rome: and Rome and the Balkans 80BC-AD14 |author=Ronald Syme |publisher=Anthony Birley, University of Exeter Press |year=2000 |isbn=9780859896320 |page=130}}</ref> it was a prosperous locality, although its history is not well known.<ref name="provincial"/>

During the Iron Age, the area of Skopje was inhabited by the [[Dardani]]. [[Illyrians|Illyrian]] tribes lived in most of the area west of Skopje and [[Thracians|Thracian]] groups ([[Maedi]]) to the east, whilst [[Paeonians]] lived to the south of Skopje.{{sfn|Duridanov|1975|p=17}} The Dardanians had remained independent after the Roman conquest of [[Macedon]], and it seems most likely that Dardania lost its independence in 28 BC.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-7653/2006/0350-76530637007P.pdf |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006211424/http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-7653/2006/0350-76530637007P.pdf |url-status=dead |title=Vladimir P. Petrović, Pre-Roman and Roman Dardania Historical and Geographical Considerations, Balcanica XXXVII, p 10. |archivedate=6 October 2011}}</ref>