Po redaktohet Skopje (paragraf)

=== Origins ===

The rocky promontory on which stands the [[Skopje Fortress|Fortress]] was the first site to be settled in Skopje. The earliest vestiges of human occupation 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 suggest that the settlement always belonged to a same culture, which progressively evolved thanks to contacts with [[Balkan]] and [[Danube]] cultures, and later with the [[Aegean Sea|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. It was 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 [[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"/>

The earliest people in Skopje Valley were probably the [[Triballi]]. Later the area was populated by the [[Paionians]]. Scupi was originally a [[Paionians|Paionian]] settlement, but it became afterwards [[Dardani]]an town.<ref name="history"/><ref>{{Cite book |title=World and Its Peoples: Europe |volume=12 |publisher=Marshall Cavendish Corporation |isbn=9780761478836 |page=1682 |date=September 2009}}</ref> [[Dardani]]ans, who lived in present-day [[Kosovo]], invaded the region around Skopje during the 3rd century BC. ''[[Scupi]]'', the ancient name for Skopje, became the capital of Dardania, which extended from [[Naissus]] to [[Bylazora]] in the second century BC.<ref>''Macedonia yesterday and today'', Giorgio Nurigiani, Publisher: Teleurope, 1967 p. 77.</ref> The Dardanians had remained independent after the Roman conquest of [[Macedon]], and it seems most likely that Dardania lost 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>