249 The Peştera cu Oase People Chapter 21 The Peştera cu Oase People, Europe’s Earliest Modern Humans region during this critical time period (Fig. 21.1). Here, we present the site and the human fossils, and then discuss their signiicance in the light of the broader regional context. The Peştera cu Oase project is an ongoing collaborative international endeavour, and this represents a summary of the current state of our knowledge. Peştera cu Oase: the site The karstic system The Peştera cu Oase (Cave with Bones) is located in the southwestern Carpathians, in the vicinity of Anina, Caraş-Severin, Banat, Romania. This is a region of complex geology and rugged terrain. The average elevation is around 700 m and river valleys are deeply incised between steep slopes. The cave belongs to the karstic system created by the Ponor stream, which, via the Miniş and the Nera, drains into the Danube, only c. 36 km away. Above the presently active, c. 750-m-long underground stretch of the Ponor, and sharing the same general NW–SE orientation, there is a network of fossil galleries located at diferent elevations, comprising at least two main levels that relect prior stages in the incision of the Miniş drainage. The uppermost level is currently exposed over extensive stretches as a result of collapses, originating an exokarst doted by numerous dolines but whose con- João Zilhão, Erik Trinkaus, Silviu Constantin, Ştefan Milota, Mircea Gherase, Laurenţiu Sarcina, Adrian Danciu, Hélène Rougier, Jérôme Quilès & Ricardo Rodrigo In OIS-3 times, especially during colder episodes when the northern European plain would have been an arctic desert, the Iron Gates of the Danube were the only route bridging the Pannonian basin, and western Europe, with the shores of the Black Sea. If the dispersal of early modern humans into Europe was from the Near East and followed the ‘Danube corridor’ (Conard & Bolus 2003), one would predict from the strategic location of this narrow bridge that such pioneer migrants should have imprinted the sur- rounding landscape with traces of their activity. The accidental discovery, in 2002, and subsequent study in 2003–05 of the Peştera cu Oase cave system (Moldovan et al. 2003; Trinkaus et al. 2003a,b; 2005; 2006), yielded one such window into the presence of humans in the Figure 21.1. Sites that yielded the earliest remains of modern humans in the Near East and southeastern Europe: 1) Mladeč; 2) Oase; 3) Cioclovina; 4) Muierii; 5) Bacho Kiro; 6) Ksar ‘Akil.