Universität, Museum des Instituts für Geowissenschaften
For historical reasons, the museum of the Institute of Earth Sciences is divided into two sections: the Geological-Palaeontological Collection and the Mineralogical Collection.
The Mauer Collection is part of the Geological-Palaeontological Collection of Heidelberg University and was collected over more than 200 years in the sands of the primeval Neckar in Mauer and the surrounding area. In total, there are about 3700 bone and tooth fragments, some of which can be seen in the museum of the institute and some of which have been lent to museums in the region.
The present catalogue provides an overview of the acquisition, origin and designation of the finds with a status as of around the mid-1980s and was created at the Institute of Geosciences and its forerunner, the Geological-Palaeontological Institute, respectively. The most famous exhibit in this catalogue is the lower jaw of Homo heidelbergensis, which was found in 1907 in the Grafenrain sand quarry in Mauer.
The fossils listed in the catalogue provide important clues to the environment of the 610,000-year-old Homo heidelbergensis and show a species-rich fauna.
