Jawdropping discovery: Remains of extinct human species that died thousands of ... trends now
A dentist caught a huge surprise when he visited his parents' house and spotted a familiar bit of anatomy embedded into the corridor of their newly renovated home.
The freshly laid tile appeared to contain a human jawbone, just inside the threshold that leads out to the terrace, according to a post on Reddit where he shared the find.
Reddit is rife with fake posts, but multiple experts confirmed to DailyMail.com that this really does appear to be a jawbone, and that it probably belonged to either a modern human (Homo sapiens) or, more likely, an extinct hominin like Homo erectus or a Neanderthal.
And if the fossil belonged to one of these ancient human ancestors, it is anywhere from 24 thousand to 1.9 million years old.
A Reddit user posted this photo of a jawbone found in his parent's home. It was embedded
Redditor Kidipadeli75, who said he is a dentist, posted a photo of the tile in the r/fossils forum.
The tiles in question are made of travertine, a calcium-rich limestone that is often mined and cut for tile.
'While fossils are often found in travertine, hominin fossils are much less common,' archaeologist Kristina Killgrove told DailyMail.com. 'This one is definitely a hominin's lower jaw bone, cut transversely somewhere through the middle.'
As can be seen in the photo, the jawbone was cut at an angle. Some cross sections of teeth remain on one side, while the teeth have been cut out of the other side, exposing the fossilized inside of the mandible.
'I'm not at all surprised that there are bones embedded into this type of stone,' Angelique Corthals, associate professor of forensic anthropology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told DailyMail.com.
'It's pretty common. The uncommon thing is to be that lucky that you find the embedded hominin jaw,' she said.
A common and desirable material for tiles, travertine is cheaper than marble, and its veins of calcite crystals give it an interesting appearance.
It forms near natural springs, including Mammoth Springs in Yellowstone National Park.
At these springs, many large and small animals live and die. And when they die, their remains end up trapped in the sedimentary rock until dug up to tile someone's home.
In this case they ended up in the home of Kidipadeli75's parents, who had not noticed the jawbone until he pointed it out.
'They chose 'second choice' travertine which means with more flaws than 1st choice so it would be cheaper and less slippery,' Kidipadeli75 wrote.
Many people must have
