Iorga's ideas on the origin of the Romanians, and his explanation for the more mysterious parts of that lengthy ethnogenesis process, were shaped by his both his scientific and ideological preoccupations. Some of Iorga's studies focused specifically on the original events in the process: ancient Dacia's conquest by the Roman Empire (Trajan's Dacian Wars), and the subsequent foundation of Roman Dacia. His account is decidedly in support of Romania's Roman (Latin) roots, and even suggests that Romanization preceded the actual conquest. However, he viewed the autochthonous element in this acculturation, the Dacians (collocated by him with the Getae), as historically significant, and he even considered them the source for Romania's later links with the Balkan "Thracian" space. Through the Thracians and the Illyrians, Iorga believed to have found a common root for all Balkan peoples, and an ethnic layer which he believed was still observable after later conquests. He was nevertheless explicit in distancing himself from the speculative texts of Dacianist Nicolae Densușianu, where Dacia was described as the source of all European civilization.