Travertine is a type of limestone that has become quite popular for home decorating because of the interesting natural patterns in it. Redditor Kidipadeli75 went to see the new travertine tiles his parents installed in their bathroom. Kidipadeli75 is a dentist, and recognized one of the patterns as a mandible! When he posted the picture to reddit, he got responses from other dentists, forensic odontologists, and archaeologists who concurred that it was a jawbone cut at an odd angle, possibly human. The tile was sourced from Turkey, and is believed to be around 200,000 years old, so it might be Neanderthal. Since the image was posted, Kidipadeli75 has been in contact with a paleoanthropology team.
John Hawks explains how this can happen, and it's more likely than you might think. Fossils abound in travertine, although they are mostly from animals. The process of retrieving and cutting travertine is fairly automated, so it would be easy to miss an obvious fossil like this one. So how would you feel about having human remains in your bathroom tile? -via Digg
(Image credit: Kidipadeli75)
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