 Evidence from this and other sites indicates the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture extracted salt from salt-laden spring water through the process of briquetage.The earliest written evidence of people living in the territory of present-day Romania comes from Herodotus in Book IV of his "Histories", which was written in 440 BC; He writes that the tribal confederation of the Getae were defeated by the Persian Emperor Darius the Great during his campaign against the Scythians.The Dacians, who are widely accepted as part of the Getae described earlier by the Greeks, were a branch of Thracians who inhabited Dacia, which corresponds with modern Romania, Moldova, northern Bulgaria and surrounding nations.