author
Otto Schoetensack
1850–1912
Best remembered for naming Homo heidelbergensis, he helped bring one of Europe’s most important early human fossils into the scientific conversation. His path was unusual too: he moved from industry into anthropology and left a mark on paleoanthropology in just a few years.
1 Audiobook
Der Unterkiefer des Homo Heidelbergensis: Aus den Sanden von Mauer bei Heidelberg
by Otto Schoetensack
About the author
Born in Stendal on July 12, 1850, Otto Karl Friedrich Schoetensack was a German industrialist who later turned to anthropology after retiring from the chemical company he had founded. That career change led him into the study of human origins at a time when prehistoric discoveries were transforming science.
He is most closely associated with the famous Mauer jaw, a fossil found near Heidelberg in 1907. Schoetensack described the specimen in 1908 and gave it the name Homo heidelbergensis, linking his work permanently to one of the key finds in the history of human evolution.
Schoetensack died in Ospedaletti, Italy, on December 23, 1912. Though not as widely known as some later prehistorians, he remains an important figure in the early study of fossil humans because of the clarity and influence of his description of the Mauer discovery.