Peștera cu Oase (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈpeʃtera ku ˈo̯ase], meaning "The Cave with Bones") is a system of 12 karstic galleries and chambers located near the city Anina, in the Caraș-Severin county, southwestern Romania, where some of the oldest European early modern human (EEMH) remains, between 42,000 and 37,000 years old, have been found.

Further analyses have revealed that the left temporal bone represents a third individual, assessed as adolescent versus mature female, designated as "Oase 3".

Thus, the specimens exhibit a suite of derived "modern human" features like projecting chin, no brow ridge, a high and rounded brain case.

[5][6] In February 2002, a speleological team exploring the karstic system of Miniș Valley, in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains near Anina, discovered a previously unknown chamber with a profusion of mammalian skeletal remains.

[2] From a location close to the Iron Gates in the Danubian corridor, they may represent one of the earliest modern human populations to have entered Europe.

[7] In June 2003 a further research team with Ștefan Milota, Ricardo Rodrigo, and Mircea Gherase discovered additional human remains on the cave's surface.

[13][clarification needed] In this context, the particular importance of the "Peștera cu Oase" findings resides both in the mixture of modern human and archaic (Neanderthal) features and in the fact that they are sufficiently complete to be taxonomically diagnosed and directly dated.

[15] When modern humans entered Europe, they encountered people with the same cognitive capabilities and featuring identical levels of cultural achievement.

But the overall result in the long-term continental perspective was that of biological and cultural blending, the imbalance in the size of the gene reservoirs involved explaining the eventual loss of Neanderthal mtDNA lineages among later and extant humans.