‘We really weren’t expecting this tremendous discovery’
Gabriel Borrud
October 20, 2017
The great ape teeth found in Eppelsheim last year could topple the understanding of our earliest history. Herbert Lutz, head of the excavation team, tells DW what the find means to him - and how it almost didn’t happen.
The news of the discovery was announced officially this week, because the team that performed the excavation wanted to make sure that what they had found was as significant as they initially thought.
Herbert Lutz heads that team at the Natural History Museum in Mainz.
Herbert Lutz:It's completely new to science, and it is a big surprise because nobody had expected such a tremendous, extremely rare discovery. To find a completely new species? Nobody expected that.
DW: Why were you looking at this precise location?
We were excavating riverbed sediments of the proto-Rhine River near Eppelsheim. These sediments are approximately 10 million years old and are well known in science, ever since the first fossils were excavated here in the early 19th century.
And how old are the teeth you've found?
Around 9.7 million years old.
What does a 9.7-million-year-old tooth look like?
It's perfectly preserved. It actually looks like a new excellent tooth; however, it's no longer white. It's shining like amber.
No less has been said about this tooth than that the history of mankind now has to be rewritten…
Well you know it's a question that's been discussed for decades. New discoveries lead to new insights that may contribute to our knowledge about our own history, and this finding has that potential because the great ape species has a relationship to Homo sapiens.
The groundbreaking knowledge is that we have comparable finds only in East Africa. And these are much, much younger. These species are well known as Ardi and Lucy, and their canines look very similar to the one here from Eppelsheim, but they are only two, three, four or five million years old, and Eppelsheim is almost 10. So the question is: What has happened?
You mean - how this great ape got up to the Rhine valley, or whether the species in Africa came from Europe?
Yeah, we have similar species in Africa, but we don't know where this great ape came from. We do not have comparable finds from southern Europe, even from in between maybe Greece or Turkey. From there, we know of great ape fossils, but they all look much different. And so it's a great mystery.
The team has been digging at the site in Eppelsheim for 17 yearsImage: Privat
So this is the lone Rhineland monkey whose teeth have been found. Can the general public see the discovery?
Until Sunday, yes, they are in our exhibition in the museum in Mainz. And most likely about mid November they will be on display in a great exhibition in the Landesmuseum in Mainz.
Professor Lutz, can you give us a sense of how important this finding was to you personally?
Well, we've been digging at this site for 17 years now. And when we started, of course everybody knew it had the potential to yield hominoid fossils. We were always waiting for such a find. But at the end of 2016, we decided to finish the excavation and just in the last second, if you will, these two teeth came to light. We really weren't expecting such a tremendous discovery. So for us now it's clear we have to continue, and we will continue. And, well, I think it's a big luck to experience such an exciting story. I did not expect it.
Professor Herbert Lutz is deputy director of the Natural History Museum in Mainz. His focus is geological and paleontological excavation.
A brief history of humankind
What distinguishes humans from animals? What is culture? Did Homo sapiens and Neanderthals co-exist at any time in history? A museum in Bonn answers these questions by revisiting 100,000 years of cultural history.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/A. Avital
From molecules to the nuclear bomb
Life and death are inseparable. The exhibition "A Brief History of Humankind" in Bonn's Bundeskunsthalle museum shows how, 13.8 billion years ago, molecules began to connect and turn into structured organisms. The above video still by US artist Bruce Conner shows what could spell the end of evolution: the nuclear bomb.
Image: B. Connor
A turning point: fire
Remains of the oldest Eurasian hearth dating back 780,000 years were discovered on the banks of the river Jordan. The ability to control fire was a turning point in evolutionary history that moved mankind to the top of the food chain. Fire gave light, kept people warm; people cooked over a fire and used it to make stone tools. It was a gathering place - a Stone Age TV.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
The birth of mankind
Homo sapiens had a fleeting chin, slanting forehead and a narrow brow ridge. The above skull is about 100,000 years old and was found in Israel, where Homo sapiens co-existed with Neanderthals for quite some time. All of the artifacts displayed in the Bonn exhibition are from Israel - and it's the first time they are on view in Europe.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem
Shaping culture
This Neanderthal skull was unearthed in the Amud Cave in Galilee. Anatomically, it is nothing like the skull of Homo sapiens: the chin is even more fleeting, the back of the head shows an indentation. These early humans not only fulfilled their basic needs, archaeologists also found they held burial rituals and other forms of culture.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
Togetherness
What makes us human? Family plays a huge role. Apart from historical objects, the exhibition also presents works by contemporary artists. US sculptor Charles Ray's 1993 "Family Romance" shows the fine line that connects family. In this sculpture, two parents hold their offspring's hands; however, the normalcy of a nuclear family is disrupted as both son and daughter are as tall as mom and dad.
Image: R. Charles
Gods made of stone
Humans started forming figurines depicting gods about 8,000 years ago, at a time when people were settling, planting fields and forming communities. They created goddesses they could pray to for good harvests and fertility. The phallic shape in the above photo could also symbolize a male god. Lines and etchings indicate abstract portraits.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
External memory aid
Unlike animals, humans can collect and write down knowledge. The Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia began to record information and numbers. This clay tablet was inscribed between 4,000 and 3,100 BC, paving the way for the complex memory systems needed to build cities and empires.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
Money instead of shells
This coin made of electrum, a gold and silver alloy, is the oldest-known coin in the world. Embossed with the picture of a grazing stag, it is from the seventh century BC. Of course, other forms of payment already existed: sea shells, pearls and promissory notes.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/Y. Hovav
Home sweet home
In the third century BC, Arad was a flourishing business center at the crossroads of two trade routes in the Middle East. For 350 years, it was a magnificent city of palaces, temples and homes. The above model shows a typical square one-room dwelling with a flat roof, dating back to between 3,000 to 2,650 BC.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/A. Hay
Two-faced progress
In 1912, Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity, a sensation and a scientific revolution. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem owns the original manuscript to E=mc². The mathematical formula embodies the two sides of progress: With it, mankind gained important insight into physics, but it also enabled the creation of the first nuclear bomb.
