Big game hunting for Neanderthals, giant elephants among the prey

Neanderthals lived in such large and well organized groups that they could hunt and slaughter giant elephants four meters high that could have fed hundreds of individuals.

This is demonstrated by the bones and tusks of about seventy specimens found together with stone tools in a mining site near the city of Neumark-Nord, in north-eastern Germany.

The study, which sheds new light on the social organization and abilities of our ancient 'cousins', is published in the journal Science Advances by researchers at the Monrepos Museum and Archaeological Research Center in Germany in collaboration with Leiden University in the Netherlands .

The finds date back to the Eemian interglacial period (therefore 75,000 years before the arrival of Sapiens in western Europe) and include the remains of over 70 specimens (mostly adult males) of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), imposing animals which they could reach 4 meters at the withers.

Their tusks and butcher-marked bones were left behind over 300 years in dozens of mounds along what used to be an ancient lakeshore.

The marks impressed on the bones show that the hunters were very careful.

"They really picked out every piece of meat and fat," says Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at Leiden University and co-author of the study.

The bones are not gnawed by scavenging animals such as wolves or hyenas, suggesting that there was nothing left for them.

According to the researchers' estimates, the meat of a single elephant would have been enough to feed 350 people for a week or 100 people for a month.

Previously, Neanderthals were thought to have lived in small groups of up to 20 individuals, but the size of elephants suggests that there may be much larger groups capable of hunting, slaughtering and consuming such massive prey.