Breitscheid (Hesse)

Breitscheid
Coat of arms
Breitscheid
Location of Breitscheid within Lahn-Dill-Kreis district
Coordinates: 50°41′N 08°12′E / 50.683°N 8.200°E / 50.683; 8.200Coordinates: 50°41′N 08°12′E / 50.683°N 8.200°E / 50.683; 8.200
Country	Germany
State	Hesse
Admin. region	Gießen
District	Lahn-Dill-Kreis
Government
• Mayor	Roland Lay
Area
• Total	31.74 km2 (12.25 sq mi)
Elevation	462 m (1,516 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	4,762
• Density	150/km2 (390/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	35767
Dialling codes	02777
Vehicle registration	LDK
Website	www.gemeinde-breitscheid.de

Breitscheid is a community in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis in Hesse, Germany.

Breitscheid lies from 266 to 600 m above sea level on the eastern slope of the Westerwald range at the point shared by three German states: Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Erdbach, a constituent community, lies in an interesting place with regards to Earth's history, in the eastern part of the Westerwald, near that range's highest peak, Fuchskauten (657 m).

In the Erdbach area are noteworthy limestone deposits from various geological time periods. "Erdbach limestone" from Lower Carboniferous times gave an era the name "Erdbachium". The Erdbach – the village's namesake brook – disappears into a karst system, and does not appear again for 1.5 km where it can be seen in a quarry.

Not far from there, the "Homberg" fossil reserve was instituted, which serves some university institutes from Jena to the Rhine as a research area. The older limestone formation near Breitscheid (main centre) stems from a subtropical coral reef from the Devonian period (mid-Palaeozoic, 400,000,000 years ago).

In the "stone chambers" of the Rolsbach valley, some gravesites from Hallstatt times (about 550 BC) were unearthed in 1884. In archaeology, there is a special burial ornament called an "Erdbach coil torc" (Erdbacher Wendelhalsring). It is also believed that Neanderthal people once lived nearby, but this belief awaits further discovery.