to the current or former Republic of Austria, or extends also to all lands formerly ruled by the rulers of Austria. Furthermore, should Austrian history include the period 1938–1945, when it nominally did not exist? Of the lands now part of the second Republic of Austria, many were added over time – only two of the nine provinces or Bundesländer (Lower Austria and Upper Austria) are strictly 'Austria', while other parts of its former sovereign territory are now part of other countries e.g., Italy, Croatia, Slovenia and Czechia. Within Austria there are regionally and temporally varying affinities to adjacent countries. Overview Human habitation of the current territory of Austria can be traced back to the first farming communities of the early Stone Age (Paleolithic era). In the late Iron Age it was occupied by people of the Hallstatt Celtic culture (c. 800 BC), one of the first Celtic cultures besides the La Tène culture in France. They first organized as a Celtic kingdom referred to by the Romans as Noricum, dating from c. 800 to 400 BC. At the end of the 1st century BC, the lands south of the Danube became part of the Roman Empire, and were incorporated as the Province of Noricum around 40 AD. The most important Roman settlement was at Carnuntum, which can still be visited today as an excavation site. In the Migration Period, the 6th century, the Bavarii, a Germanic people, occupied these lands until it fell to the Frankish Empire in the 9th century. Around 800 AD, Charlemagne established the outpost of the Avar March (Awarenmark) in what is now Lower Austria, to hold back advances from Slavs and Avars. In the 10th century an eastern (east of the River Enns) outpost of the Duchy of Bavaria, bordering Hungary, was established as the Marchia orientalis (March of the East) or 'Margraviate of Austria' in 976, ruled by the Margraves of Babenberg. This 'Eastern March' (borderland), in German was known as Ostarrîchi or 'Eastern Realm', hence 'Austria'. The first mention of Ostarrîchi occurs in a document of that name dated 996 CE. From 1156 the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa created an independent duchy (Privilegium Minus) under the House of Babenberg, until its extinction in 1246, corresponding to modern Lower Austria. Following the Babenberg dynasty and a brief interregnum, Austria came under the rule of the German king Rudolf I of Habsburg (1276–1282), beginning a