Daniel Hartmann

Daniel Hartmann, 1907

Memorial stone from 1977 for Hartmann's find

Daniel Hartmann (* 5. November 1854 in Leimen , † 21st January 1952 ) was a worker in the sand pit of the wall , where it has the lower jaw of the wall , the type specimen of fossil traditional kind Homo heidelbergensis , discovered. The municipality of Mauer made him an honorary citizen in 1948 and named a street after him.

Life

Hartmann was born in Leimen and married Elisabetha Gutruf from Mauer on November 7, 1880. In his wife's hometown, he found a job in the Grafenrain sand pit , where fossils had already been found in the first half of the 19th century and where, under the supervision of Otto Schoetensack , they kept an eye out for further prehistoric finds while mining the sand. For this purpose, the workers were instructed about the proper recovery of finds. On October 21, 1907, Hartmann, known as Sanddaniel, discovered a fossil residue on his shovel, which became world-famous as the lower jaw of Mauer . Sand pit workers Andreas Oberländer (1877–1910) and Jakob Engelhard (1838–1927) signed the find protocol together with Hartmann.

Hartmann was described as a sociable person and lived in modest circumstances in a little house on Weinbergstrasse, where he received frequent visits from students and professors who asked him about the history of the lower jaw. From her marriage to Elisabetha Gutruf († 1909) there were six children, but only three of them reached adulthood. His son Martin died in the First World War in 1915 , the two daughters died in 1941 and 1953 respectively.

Daniel Hartmann was made an honorary citizen of Mauer in 1948, and a street in Mauer bears his name. After his death he was given a grave of honor in Mauer, and his name can also be read on a memorial stone erected in 1977 near the place where the lower jaw was found.

On his 100th birthday in 1954, the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung ruled: "By chance, luck and shrewdness, at the crucial moment he did a better job of science than perhaps a dozen normal honorary doctors put together ."

literature

• Norbert Preiss: Daniel Hartmann - The finder of the lower jaw of Mauer . In Homo heidelbergensis von Mauer , University Press C. Winter, Heidelberg 1997