On the morning of 20 July, a villager found parts of a hominid skull in the newly-eroded stream bed, about 80 centimetres (31 in) below the ground surface.

The skull pieces were covered in calcareous sinter and surrounded by lime-rich tuff, loess, and basalt fragments.

On 26 August 1956, Prof. Jacobshagen present his research at the international congress 'Hundert Jahre Neanderthaler: 1856–1956 [a century of Neanderthals]' in Düsseldorf.

Heberer and Kurth from Göttingen University reconstructed the skull again and carried out fluorine and 14carbon dating on the surrounding material.

In 2002 Wilfried Rosendahl sent 2 g of the skull to the Centre for Isotope Research (Centrum voor Isotopen Onderzoek) at the University of Groningen.