A group of German archaeologists from Gutenberg University and the Leibniz Center for Archaeology, together with Dutch colleagues, found evidence of widespread hunting of straight-tusked forest elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) among Neanderthals about 125 thousand years ago. This is indicated by finds in the Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia regions of Germany. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Straight-tusked elephants lived in Europe and Western Asia in the Middle and Late Pleistocene, between 781 thousand and 30 thousand years ago. The elephants were up to four meters tall and weighed up to 13 tons; This made them the largest land animals of their time, surpassing mammoths.
Scientists were able to detect the marks left by Neanderthal stone tools on elephant bones. Signs indicated that animals were hunted and killed.
“The results of the recent bone study now show that the hunting of these elephants by Neanderthals was not a one-off event but was more or less an ongoing activity,” said Professor Sabine Gaudzinski-Windhäuser, one of the authors of the study.
Scientists calculated that one adult elephant would be enough to provide one day’s food for at least 2.5 thousand adult Neanderthals.
According to archaeologists, to hunt such a large and valuable animal as the straight-tusked elephant, Neanderthals had to gather in large groups.
Earlier archaeologists I learnedThat Neanderthals hunted the most formidable predators in Eurasia – cave lions.