The lower jaw found in a sand pit at Mauer near Heidelberg, southern Germany, in 1907 was the first of the pre-Neanderthal fossils to be found in Europe. Although it dates from perhaps 400,000 years ago, it is not very different from the Neanderthals of c50,000 years ago. The teeth are similarly small, but the ascending ramus is very wide. See also human evolution.
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983Copied