Anina

Anina is a town in southwestern Romania, in Caraș-Severin County, with a populace of 10,886 in 2000. The town administers one village, Steierdorf. In 2002, the oldest modern human remains in Europe have been determined in a cave close to Anina. Nicknamed Ion din Anina, the remains are some 40,000 years old.

Anina represents one of the most vital localities within the South Carpathians for Jurassic fossils, each plant life and animals, as the geological historical past here is specifically numerous and nicely preserved. Anina is a fossile-Lagerstatte for Early Jurassic biota, the Hettangian-Sinemurian terrestrial Steierdorf Formation recording an extremely wealthy floral association, vertebrate and invertebrate tracks, lines and burrows. This paleontological historical past changed into exposed also by means of big mining works, together with underground mines and open solid mines, such works permitting the 3-dimensional research of the continental deposits, a unique possibility in Europe and within the international, until the unlucky last of the closing major mine in 2006.