Modern Human Discovered in a Cave in Romania

Early modern human from a Romanian Cave

A human cranium found in Pestera cu Oase cave, South-West of Romania, might be the missing link of the Neanderthal man with the modern man. I remember that in the same cave the archaeologists found in 2002 the most ancient homo sapiens ever found, that they called Nea Ion (Mr. John in Romanian) – the oldest early modern human specimen in Europe (carbon C14 spectrometry dated this 34.000 – 36.000 years old)

Confirming this would mean another extraordinary step for the science: this would be the most ancient modern man found in Europe. The skeleton, supposedly of a teenager is very similar to the modern man, but shorter and having very big front upper teeth, a characteristic of the Neanderthal humans (Homo Neanderthalesis)

For much more details and a complete article please check the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences

The Pestera cu Oase (cave with bones) is a karstic chamber in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains, Romania. It is just one of the many caves in western Romania; For the passionate of caving Outdoor Holidays ® proposes guided caving tour to some of the caves in Carpathian Mountains.