Archaeologists from MONREPOS, the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and Leiden University have recently learned that around 125,000 years ago, hunting of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene, was part of the Neanderthal behavioral repertoire, for several dozens of generations. This knowledge is based on data from one lake-side location in northern Europe only. In their new paper, the researchers present data from two other, contemporaneous sites on the North European plain, demonstrating that elephant exploitation was a widespread phenomenon there. The sheer quantities of food generated by the butchering activities, aimed at extensive exploitation of the carcasses, suggest that Neanderthals had some form of food preservation and/or at least temporarily operated in larger groups than commonly acknowledged.
“Neanderthals hunted and butchered straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene, in a lake landscape on the North European plain, 125,000 years ago,” said first author Professor Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser and her colleagues.
“With evidence for a remarkable focus on adult males and on their extended utilization, the data from this location are thus far without parallel in the archaeological record.”
“Given their relevance for our knowledge of the Neanderthal niche, we investigated whether the Neumark-Nord subsistence practices were more than a local phenomenon, possibly determined by local characteristics.”
In the new research, the scientists analyzed the remains of straight-tusked elephants from two other archaeological sites on the North European plain, Gröbern and Taubach.
They identified in both assemblages similar butchering patterns as at the Neumark-Nord site.
“The results of the examination of the bones from Gröbern and Taubach now show that the hunting of these elephants by Neanderthals was not an isolated phenomenon but must have been a more…
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