Anina 5.49

Anina is a town in southwestern Romania, in Caraş-Severin County, with a population of 10,886 in 2000. The town administers one village, Steierdorf (German: Steierdorf, Hungarian: Stájerlak).GeologyIn 2002, the oldest modern human remains in Europe were discovered in a cave near Anina. Nicknamed "Ion din Anina" (John of Anina), the remains (the lower jaw) are some 40,000 years old.Anina represents one of the most important localities in the South Carpathians for Jurassic fossils, both plants and animals, as the geological heritage here is particularly diverse and well preserved (Popa, 2001, 2005). Anina is a fossile-Lagerstatte for Early Jurassic biota, the Hettangian-Sinemurian terrestrial Steierdorf Formation recording an extremely rich floral association, vertebrate and invertebrate tracks, traces and burrows. This paleontological heritage was uncovered also by significant mining works, such as underground mines and open cast mines, such works permitting the three-dimensional studies of the continental deposits, a unique opportunity in Europe and in the world, until the unfortunate closing of the last major mine in 2006. Still, the sterile dumps of the former mines and the former open cast mines of Ponor and Colonia Ceha very are rich in plant material, and they represent the subject of local conservation, as preserved sites or Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).The Early Jurassic (Hettangian - Sinemurian) flora is represented by Bryophytes (Hepaticae), Pteridophytes (Filicopsida, Sphenopsida, Lycopsida) and Gymnosperms (Pteridospermopsida, Ginkgopsida, Cycadopsida, Coniferopsida), with numerous coal generators (Givulescu, 1998, Popa and Van Konijnenburg - Van Cittert, 2005). Very rare vertebrate tunnels were recently described (Popa and Kedzior, 2006), such burrows being formerly reported only from three occurrences in the world (South Africa, Arizona and Argentina), tetrapod tracks such as Batrachopus cf. deweyi (Popa, 2000), and sauropod tracks of Parabrontopodus sp. type (Pienkowski et al., 2009).