Heidelberg, << HYD uhl burg, >> jaw is a fossil bone from a prehistoric human being who probably lived between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago. But some scientists believe the jaw might be 500,000 to 700,000 years old. The fossil is a jawbone with most of its teeth still intact. The jaw is larger than that of a modern human being and lacks a chin. Workers digging in a sandpit found it in 1907 in the village of Mauer, Germany, near Heidelberg.
The jaw received much attention when it was discovered because by that time scientists had found only a few other fossils of prehistoric human beings. However, more recent fossil discoveries in Europe, Asia, and Africa have decreased the importance of the jaw and changed scientists’ understanding of it. Many of the later finds are more complete skeletons. Originally, experts believed the Heidelberg people belonged to a kind of prehistoric human being known as Homo erectus. Scientists now believe the Heidelberg jaw should be classified as an early form of the modern human species, Homo sapiens.
