It was August 1856, and some miners were excavating limestone in the Feldhofer caves in the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, just like their predecessors had been doing for centuries. During the dig, the workers unearthed some bones. No big deal, they thought, probably just a bear or something, so they discarded the bones with the rest of the debris. One of history’s greatest discoveries was almost confined to the garbage dump, but fortunately, the mine’s owner, Wilhelm Beckershoff, saw t...
