Ehringsdorf remains

The Ehringsdorf remains are the fragments of at least nine early Neanderthal individuals, exhumed from a deposit of limestone by workers at the Ehringsdorf quarries along the Ilm River, roughly 2.4 km (1.49 mi) from Weimar in Thuringia, Germany. The deposits in which this skull were found included elephant, rhinoceros, horse, and bovid fossil remains and came from the travertines belonging to the second half of the last (Eemian) interglacial period. The estimated age of the remains is between 150,000 and 120,000 years. The remains' characteristics typical of early Neanderthals include the size of the brow ridges, the long and low brain case, and the strong chinless lower jaw.

Ehringsdorf H skull

In 1928, German anthropologist Franz Weidenreich published Der Schädelfund von Weimar-Ehringsdorf, (the skull find from Weimar-Ehringsdorf) where he described the Ehringsdorf H (or Ehringsdorf 9) skull-cap as that of an adult female. He suggested that the frontal area of the remains showed evidence of being struck, which led to speculation that the subject was murdered. In addition, he determined that the lack of a cranial base meant the skull had been opened for the purpose of extracting the brain. The remains, however, were so fragmentary that little attention was paid to this opinion.

Based on the fusing of the Ehringsdorf H skull and small muscular traces on the bones, Weidenreich suggested the remains to be of a female of around 20–30 years old. The skull, like the ones found before it, showed distinct ancient (pre-300 ka) attributes.