History of Romania - Prehistory

Prehistory

In 2002 in the "Cave With Bones" in present day Romania 40,000 year old modern human remains were discovered. In 2011 older modern human remains were identified in the UK (Kents Cavern at 41,000BP) and Italy (Grotta del Cavallo at 43,000BP), nonetheless the Romanian fossils are still among the oldest remains of Homo sapiens in Europe, so they may be representative of the first such people to have entered the continent. The remains are especially interesting because they present a mixture of archaic, early modern human and Neanderthal morphological features.

One of the fossils found—a male, adult jawbone—has been dated to be between 34,000 and 36,000 years old, which would make it one of the oldest fossils found to date of modern humans in Europe. A skull found in Peștera cu Oase (The Cave with Bones) in 2004-5 bears features of both modern humans and Neanderthals. According to a paper by Erik Trinkaus and others, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in January 2007, this finding suggests that the two groups interbred thousands of years ago.