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Roughly 48,000 years ago, Neandertals killed a cave lion by thrusting a wooden spear into its abdomen, lion remains from Germany suggest.
The discovery represents the first direct evidence of Neandertals hunting cave lions, and the oldest evidence of any hominid slaying a large predator, researchers say. But such behavior probably began much earlier among Neandertals, zooarchaeologist Gabriele Russo and colleagues report October 12 in Scientific Reports.
The researchers also examined three cave lion paw bones from another German site that date to at least roughly 190,000 years ago. These bones, discovered in 2019, were originally part of a pelt that Neandertals skinned off a freshly killed cave lion (Panthera spelaea), the researchers suspect. The bones lay close together and included one with marks typically made during skinning of animal hides. No evidence indicates that the paw bones were used as pendants or as parts of clothing.
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