It is not known who created the wheel and axle, which certainly was a conscious invention and not a technological accident, dating from about 3000 BCE.

The oldest wheel publicized by archaeologists was found in 2002 in Ljubljana.

Austrian experts at the time established that the wheel was between fifty-one hundred and fifty-three hundred and fifty years old and is therefore at least a century older than those found in Switzerland and southern Germany.

The wheel was made of ash and oak and had a radius of seventy centimeters.

The axle is one hundred and twenty centimeters long and made of oak.

Migrating Slav tribes appear in the early sixth century on the Balkan borders of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The Slavs at this time owe allegiance to the Avar khans of the Caucasus.

So-called Alpine Slavs or proto-Slovenes, ancestors of the Slovenes, are the first of these Slavic peoples to arrive, migrating southwestward across present-day Romania and pushing up the Sava, Drava, and Mura river valleys into the Eastern Alps and the Karst.

Here, they absorb the existing Romano-Celtic-Illyrian cultures.

The settlement of the Eastern Alps region by early Slavs is part of the southward expansion of the early Slavs that will result in the characterization of the South Slavic group, and will ultimately result in the ethnogenesis of the modern Slovene people.

The Eastern Alpine territories concerned comprise modern-day Slovenia and large parts of modern Austria (Carinthia, Styria, East Tyrol, Lower Austria and parts of Upper Austria).

The proto-Slovenes in the seventh century apparently enjoy broad autonomy after escaping Avar domination.

The Slavic kingdom founded a century earlier by the Frankish merchant Samo, which includes the lands of present Slovenia, in 748 comes under Frankish rule.

The Slovenes had been overrun by the Franks during the rule of the Frankish king Charlemagne in the late eighth century, after which German nobles begin enserfing the Slovenes and German missionaries begin baptizing them in the Latin rite.

The lands in which Slovene speakers live had been assigned to the German kingdom after the partitioning of the Frankish empire.

As part of the defense of this kingdom against Magyar invaders, they had been divided among the marks, or border marches, of Carinthia, …

The marches of Carniola, Carinthia and Styria, in which live the Slovenians, have come under the tenuous authority of several territorial dynasts over the past three centuries.

Emperor Otto II had deposed Duke Henry II, "the Quarreller" of Bavaria in 976, and by creating a sixth duchy in his empire, the new Duchy of Carinthia, had split the latter's lands.

He had invested Henry the Younger as Duke of Carinthia and Otto I of Swabia as Duke of Bavaria.

Adalbero I of Eppenstein had become margrave in 995, and in 1012 Duke of Carinthia; he had been removed from office in 1035.

The duchy had been given in 1077  to Luitpold, another member of the Eppenstein family, which, however, had ended with the death of Henry III of Carinthia in 1122, at which point the duchy had been considerably reduced in area: a large part of what is today Upper Styria had passed to Ottokar II of Styria.

The remainder of Carinthia had passed from the last Eppenstein duke, Henry III of Carinthia, to his godchild Henry of the Spanheim family, who, as Henry IV, had ruled from 1122 to his early death the following year.

The Spannheims have their seat at Ljubljana, a Slovenia center with Town Rights in the Duchy of Carinthia, home also to Teutonic Knights and Franciscans friars.

Two bridges connect the walled areas with wood-made buildings, many artisans having organized themselves into guilds; fire are frequent.

The most outstanding of the Spanheim dukes was Bernhard, the first Carinthian duke who was actually described and honored in documents as "prince of the land,“ and under whose rule he dynasty had reached the height of its power.

He married Judith, a daughter of King Ottokar I of Bohemia, in 1213, thereby affiliating the ducal line with the Czech royal Přemyslid dynasty.

Bernhard's son and heir Ulrich III, by marriage with Agnes of Merania in 1248, had also inherited the title of a margrave in the adjacent March of Carniola.

However, as he has outlived his children, he has bequeathed his Carinthian and Carniolan lands to his Přemyslid cousin King Ottokar II of Bohemia according to a secret inheritance agreement of 1268.

The energetic Otokar II of Bohemia, taking advantage of an anarchic period in the Holy Roman Empire, had already seized Styria from the Hungarians, in his attempt, like the seventh century Frankish merchant-king Samo, to establish a Slavic empire.

The Slovenes, a Slavic people, had migrated southwestward across present-day Romania in about the sixth century CE and settle in the Julian Alps.

They apparently enjoyed broad autonomy in the seventh century, after escaping Avar domination.

The Franks overran the Slovenes in the late eighth century; during the rule of the Frankish king Charlemagne, German nobles began enserfing the Slovenes, and German missionaries baptized them in the Latin rite.

Emperor Otto I had incorporated most of the Slovenian lands into the duchy of Carantania in 952; later rulers had split the duchy into Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria.

In 1278 the Slovenian lands had fallen to the Austrian Habsburgs, who will control them until 1918.

Turkish marauders plague Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Slovenes abandon lands vulnerable to attack and raise bulwarks around churches to protect themselves.

The Turkish conquest of the Balkans and Hungary also disrupts the Slovenian economy; to compensate, the nobles stiffen feudal obligations and crush peasant revolts between 1478 and 1573.

 

German nobles in the three Slovenian provinces clamor in the tumult of the sixteenth century for greater autonomy, embrace the Protestant Reformation, and draw many Slovenes away from the Catholic Church.

The Reformation sparks the Slovenes' first cultural awakening.

In 1550 Primoz Trubar publishes the first Slovenian-language book, a catechism.

He later produces a translation of the New Testament and prints other Slovenian religious books in the Latin and Cyrillic scripts.

Ljubljana has a printing press by 1575, but the authorities close  it when Jurij Dalmatin tries to publish a translation of the Bible.

Slovenian publishing activity then shifts to Germany, where Dalmatin publishes his Bible with a glossary enabling Croats to read it.

The Counterreformation accelerates in Austria in the early seventeenth century, and in 1628 the emperor forces Protestants to choose between Catholicism and exile.

Jesuit counterreformers burn Slovenian Protestant literature and take other measures that retard diversification of Slovenian culture but fail to stifle it completely.

Some Jesuits preach and compose hymns in Slovenian, opened schools, teach from an expurgated edition of Dalmatin's Bible, and send Slovenian students to Austrian universities.

Nonetheless, Slovenian remains a peasant idiom, and the higher social classes speak German or Italian.

Turkish marauders plague the duchies of Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria, ruled jointly under the Habsburg monarchy.

The Slovenes abandon lands vulnerable to attack and raise bulwarks around churches to protect themselves.

German nobles in the three Slovenian provinces have in the tumult of the sixteenth century clamored for greater autonomy, embraced the Protestant Reformation, and drawn many Slovenes away from the Catholic Church, sparking the Slovenes' first cultural awakening.

While the elites of these regions have mostly become Germanized, the peasants strongly resist Germanic influences and retain their unique Slavic language and culture.

A major step towards the social and cultural emancipation of the Slovenes occurs when Primoz Trubar, a Protestant preacher in Rothenburg, Germany, publishes the first printed books in the Slovene language (Catechism and Abecedarium, 1550 in Tübingen, Germany).

Trubar will later produce a translation of the New Testament and print other Slovenian religious books in the Latin and Cyrillic scripts.