A new study by a team consisting of members of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the Leibniz Center for Archeology (LEIZA), also in Mainz, and Leiden University in the Netherlands, has revealed that Neanderthals actively hunted the extinct tusk elephant. (Palaeoloxodon antiquus).

The research was recently published in the journal PNAS. The researchers closely examined elephant bones, which are about 125,000 years old and were discovered several decades ago at Graebern in Saxony-Anhalt and Taubach in Thuringia, Germany. They were able to detect cut marks made by the stone tools used by Neanderthals; This suggests that the animals must have been hunted before being mass slaughtered.

Two years ago, the same team found the first evidence that Neanderthals actively hunted elephants, the largest land-dwelling mammals, when they analyzed bones found at the site of Neumark Nord, a former lignite mine in Saxony-Anhalt. Pleistocene. This study was published in the journal Science advances At the beginning of 2023.

“The results of the latest study on the bones from Gröbern and Taubach show that the Neanderthals’ hunting of these elephants was not an isolated event, but was probably a more organized activity,” emphasized Sabina Gaudzinski-Windhäuser, Professor of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archeology. Director of JGU and the Center for Archaeological Research and the MONREPOS Museum of the Evolution of Human Behavior in Neuwid, an institute operating under the auspices of LEIZA. Gaudzinski-Windhäuser actively participated in the study of bones in Gröbern and Taubach, as well as in the preliminary study of bones in the Neumark-Nord area.

Palaeoloxodon antiquus It was roaming around Europe and West Asia 800,000-100,000 years ago. With a shoulder height of up to four meters and a body weight of up to 13 tonnes, the European elephant was the largest land animal of its time; It was much larger than modern African and Asian elephants and even larger than the extinct woolly mammoth. .

“The meat and fat provided by the body of an adult bull Palaeoloxodon antiquus, That would be enough to meet the daily caloric intake of at least 2,500 adult Neanderthals, Gaudzinski-Windheuser said. “This is an important number because it gives us new information about Neanderthal behavior.”

For example, until now research has generally assumed that Neanderthals gathered in groups of no more than 20 individuals. However, the information available so far on the systematic exploitation of straight-tusked elephants suggests that Neanderthals must have congregated, at least temporarily, in larger groups or had techniques that allowed them to collect and store large quantities of food, or both.

In a follow-up project, researchers hope to learn more about how Neanderthals hunted these huge elephants and how their hunting activities affected these and other predators and their environments.