History of Hungary before the Hungarian conquest

The history of Hungary before the Hungarian conquest spans the time period before the Hungarian conquest in the 9th century of the territories that would become the Principality of Hungary and the Kingdom of Hungary.

The first known traces belong to the Homo heidelbergensis, with scarce or nonexistent evidence of human presence until the Neanderthals around 100,000 years ago. Anatomically modern humans arrived at the Carpathian Basin before 30,000 BC and belonged to the Aurignacian group. The rest of the Stone Age is marked by minimal or not-yet-processed archeological evidence, with the exception of the Linear Pottery culture—the "garden type civilization" that introduced agriculture to the Carpathian Basin.

During the Copper and Bronze Ages, three significant groups were the Baden, the Makó and the Ottomány (to not be confused with Ottoman Turks) cultures. The major improvement was obviously metalworking, but the Baden culture also brought about cremation and even long-distance trade with remote areas such as the Baltic or Iran. Turbulent changes during the late Bronze Age gave an end to the native, relatively advanced civilization, and the beginning of the Iron Age saw mass immigration of Indo-European nomads believed to be of ancient Iranian ancestry. However, as the time went on, the Carpathian Basin attracted immigration from all directions: the Hallstatt Celts from the west were the first and most influential at around 750 BC, the mysterious Sigynnae around 500 BC, the Pannonians—an Illyrian tribe gave the future Roman province its name, while the very east became occupied by other Thracian, Iranian, and later Celtic tribes. Before 100 BC, most of the area was occupied by various Celtic or celticized people, such as the successor of the Halstatt culture, the Taurisci, the Boii, and the Pannonians.

The Roman era began with several attacks between 156 and 70 BC, but their gradual conquest was interrupted by the Dacian king Burebista, whose kingdom stretched as far as today's Slovakia at its greatest extent.