[edit] Prehistory and Antiquity
Main articles: Prehistoric Romania and Dacia, and Roman Dacia
In 2002, the oldest modern human (Homo sapiens sapiens) remains in Europe were discovered in the "Cave With Bones" (Peştera cu Oase) near Anina in present day Romania.[13] The remains (the lower jaw) are approximately 42,000 years old and have been nicknamed "John of Anina" (Ion din Anina). As Europe’s oldest remains of Homo sapiens, they may represent the first such people to have entered the continent.[14] The remains are especially interesting because they present a mixture of archaic, early modern human and Neanderthal morphological features.[15] [16] [17] [18]

Dacian wars depicted on Trajan's column
The earliest written evidence of people living in the territory of the present-day Romania comes from Herodotus in 513 BC.[19] In one of his books, he writes that the tribal confederation of the Getae were defeated by the Persian Emperor Darius the Great during his campaign against the Scythians.[20] Dacians are a branch of Thracians that inhabitanted Dacia (corresponding to modern Romania, Moldova and northern Bulgaria). The Dacian kingdom reached its maximum expansion during King Burebista, around 82 BC. Later, The region came under the scrutiny of Rome when the Roman province, bordering along the Danube, Moesia, was attacked by the Dacians in 87 AD during Emperor Domitian's reign. The Dacians were eventually defeated by the Roman Empire under Emperor Trajan in two campaigns stretching from 101 AD to 106 AD,[21] and the core of their kingdom was turned into the Roman province of Dacia.

Roman Dacia
Because the province was rich in ores, and especially silver and gold ,[22] the Romans heavily colonized the province,[23] brought with them Vulgar Latin and started a period of intense romanization (giving birth to proto-Romanian).[24] [25] But in the 3rd century AD, with the invasions of migratory populations such as Goths, the Roman Empire was forced to pull out of Dacia in 270 AD, thus making it the first province to be abandoned. [26] [27]