Swanscombe fossil is the remains of a prehistoric human being who lived between about 300,000 and 225,000 years ago. The fossil consists of three pieces of a skull. The bones were found at Swanscombe, near London, in 1935, 1936, and 1955.
A similar skull, considered about 375,000 years old, had been found in 1933 at Steinheim, Germany, near Stuttgart. The Swanscombe and Steinheim skulls are small and lightly built. Scientists contrasted these fossils with the Heidelberg jaw, a large fossil found in 1907 in Heidelberg, Germany. Scientists thought the Heidelberg jaw was the remains of an earlier species of human being, Homo erectus. They believed the Swanscombe and Steinheim fossils represented early forms of the modern human species, Homo sapiens.
More recent discoveries have changed scientists’ understanding of the Swanscombe, Steinheim, and Heidelberg fossils. In France, Greece, Spain, and Germany, archaeologists have found fossil skulls and other bones that are about as old as the Swanscombe and Steinheim fossils but large like the Heidelberg jaw. These discoveries indicate that the small Swanscombe and Steinheim skulls probably belonged to women. The skulls of the men who lived at the same time were larger. Scientists now believe that all these fossils, including the Heidelberg jaw, represent early Homo sapiens.
