Large Groups Of Neanderthals Ate Giant Elephants, Recent Evidence Suggests

The straight-tusked, four-meter (13 foot) tall elephant weighed approximately eight cars. It walked across northern Europe around 125,000 years back. Recent excavations of a burial site for these elephants have revealed that Neanderthals skillfully hunted and killed these huge walking beasts. Science reports.

The remains of these elephants were discovered first by coal miners working near Neumark Nord in central Germany. Over the course a decade, archaeologists found the remains 70 of these giants. In addition to other animal remains, tools were also discovered. Scientists believe this is evidence that Neanderthals existed in larger communities than previously thought, due to the difficulties of slaying an extinct elephant.

Neanderthals were thought to have been mobile hominins who never lived but moved in groups of 20 or more. The researchers found that one adult straight-tusked elephant could feed 350 people in a week and 100 people in a month.

“This is really hard and time-consuming work,” Lutz Kindler, archaeozoologist at MONREPOS Archaeological Search Center, said the following: “Why would you slaughter the whole elephant if you’re going to waste half the portions?”

Months of Studying nearly 3,400 bones yielded consistent evidence showing careful butchering of the animals, Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, another archaeozoologist at MONREPOS and co-author of the study, found. The Neanderthals were also found. “went for every scrap of meat and fat,” Wil Roebroeks (an archaeologist from Leiden University and co-author of this study) said.

Neanderthals lived on the Earth for almost 300,000 years. They disappeared around 40,000 years ago. They hunted with thrusting and throwing spears. Found You can also find other archaeological sites. Neanderthals used coordinated efforts to kill one elephant for this prey. Most of the remains are of adult male straight-tusked elephants, which spent large amounts of time alone — away from herds.

Neanderthals are more complex than scientists thought or as popularly portrayed in popular culture. They require social skills to coordinate attacks and kill the animals.

Neanderthals had unique burial practices and created yarn and art in addition to their skills in hunting, butchering, preserving and preservation. per CNN.

Britt M. Starkovich, a researcher at the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen in Germany, released a commentary on the study as it was published, though she was not involved in the research. She stated, “To the more recognizably human traits that we know Neanderthals had — taking care of the sick, burying their dead, and occasional symbolic representation — we now also need to consider that they had preservation technologies to store food and were occasionally semi sedentary or that they sometimes operated in groups larger than we ever imagined.”

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases