The castle rock was not chosen by the Slavs; it was chosen thousands of years before them. A fortified settlement stood on it in the Bronze Age, around 1600 BC, and Celts were living on the hill in the first century BC. Slavs settled it permanently from about the turn of the eighth and ninth centuries and threw a massive rampart of earth and timber around the summit. By the end of the eighth century the place had become the seat of what historians call the Principality of Nitra — a territory with its own prince, a hundred years before there was a kingdom of Hungary to swallow it.Hradné bralo si nevybrali Slovania — vybrali ho ľudia tisícročia pred nimi. Opevnené sídlisko na ňom stálo už v dobe bronzovej, okolo roku 1600 pred n. l., a v 1. storočí pred n. l. tu žili Kelti. Slovania sa na kopci natrvalo usadili na prelome 8. a 9. storočia a okolo vrcholu postavili mohutný val z hliny a dreva. Koncom 8. storočia sa tu začalo formovať Nitrianske kniežatstvo — územie s vlastným panovníkom, sto rokov predtým, než vzniklo Uhorské kráľovstvo, ktoré ho pohltilo.
