Neanderthals lived in groups big enough to eat giant elephants

Science ^ | February 1, 2023 | Andrew Curry

[SunkenCiv]

On the muddy shores of a lake in east-central Germany, Neanderthals gathered some 125,000 years ago to butcher massive elephants. With sharp stone tools, they harvested up to 4 tons of flesh from each animal, according to a new study that is casting these ancient human relatives in a new light. The degree of organization required to carry out the butchery—and the sheer quantity of food it provided—suggests Neanderthals could form much larger social groups than previously thought.

The find comes from a trove of animal bones and stone tools uncovered in the 1980s by coal miners near the town of Neumark-Nord. Beginning in 1985, archaeologists spent a decade observing the mining work, recovering animal bones and stone tools from a sprawling site. Dating to a relatively warm period in Europe known as the Eemian interglacial... the discoveries include the bones and tusks of more than 70 mostly adult male straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), an extinct species almost twice the size of modern African elephants that stood nearly 4 meters tall at the shoulder. Most had been left in dozens of piles along the ancient lakeshore over the course of about 300 years...

Gouges and scratches on nearly every bone show the hunters were thorough. "They really went for every scrap of meat and fat," says University of Leiden archaeologist and study co-author Wil Roebroeks. The bones hadn't been gnawed by scavengers like wolves or hyenas, suggesting nothing was left for them.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

They put a brick on your head.

[alexander_busek]

On the muddy shores of a lake in east-central Germany, Neanderthals gathered some 125,000 years ago to butcher massive elephants. With sharp stone tools, they harvested up to 4 tons of flesh from each animal, according to a new study that is casting these ancient human relatives in a new light. The degree of organization required to carry out the butchery—and the sheer quantity of food it provided—suggests Neanderthals could form much larger social groups than previously thought.

pages 96-97

THE KILL IS CUT UP

At dusk, in the smoking aftermath of the drive, hunters are butchering one of their kill. Already they have hacked through the thick hide to reach their prime target, the soft organs like the heart and liver [...] Squatting in the foreground, a man is greedily helping himself to brains scooped from a severed head; a crushed elephant skull was found in just this position. Walking away from the carcass, an adolescent with a slab of flesh on a stick over his shoulder balances on a crude bridge of disjointed leg bones.

In the summer of 1963, digging at Ambrona, Clark Howell came upon just such a linear pattern of elephant bones (see photograph). [...] It seems unlikely that the bones were laid thus as part of a ceremony since no evidence of such behavior by Homo erectus exists from other sites.

NOTE: Homo erectus predates Neanderthal Man!

See also the image of Neanderthals having bagged a Wolly Rhino on pages 134-135 of the same volume:

This article purports to present us with something new?!

The Life Nature Library was published in the 1960s!

Regards,

[alexander_busek]

[...] because they wanted to stay warm by the fire.

Fire was probably denounced as ra-acist!

Regards,

[central_va]

How hungry do you have to be to hunt a giant elephant with sharpened sticks?

[alexander_busek]

Giant elephants? Are there any other kind?

"Dwarf elephants first inhabited the Mediterranean islands during the Pleistocene, including all the major islands with the apparent exception of Corsica and the Balearics. Mediterranean dwarf elephants have generally been considered as members of the genus Palaeoloxodon, derived from the continental straight-tusked elephant, Palaeoloxodon antiquus (Falconer & Cautley, 1847), Syn.: Elephas antiquus. An exception is the dwarf Middle-Late Pleistocene Sardinian mammoth, Mammuthus lamarmorai (Major, 1883), the first endemic elephant of the Mediterranean islands recognized as belonging to the mammoth line."

- Wikipedia

Regards,

[Little Pig]

The ones this bunch hunted were “almost twice the size” of modern African elephants. That, to me, makes them giants in relation to other elephants.

[Last Dakotan]

What round for massive elephant?

[Paal Gulli]

"Maybe it was just one Neanderthal who was really, really hungry."

Prolly some Cajunderthal name of Beaudreaux. Prolly made the biggest gumbo what tha whirl had evah seen, I tol' you for true!

[Graybeard58]

All my relatives are 6 foot or better.

How the heck did I get the short gene?

```````````````````````````````````````````

I had 5 brothers, everyone of them had red hair, I did not have red hair, I asked my then 95 year old mother why I didn’t have red hair. Still witty to the end, she said, with an eye wink, “there are some things we just don’t talk about son”. Three of my brothers heard her and roared laughing.

[daniel1212]

Ground-breaking study right there! Coming up next! Indians and early American settlers lived in groups big enough to eat large buffalo. Alaskans lived in big enough groups to use every single part of a whale, including the bones. Mid-west settlers lived in big enough groups to grow and consume bushels of corn. We need new headline writers!

The new woke headlines may substitute as Neanderthal "they" for "Neanderthal Man" since "we do not know if Neanderthal Man would ID as "non-binary."

[clearcarbon]

"Neanderthals lived in groups big enough to eat giant elephants

How differently might we have evolved if they had access to plastic wrap for left-overs.

[alexander_busek]

I had 5 brothers, everyone of them had red hair, I did not have red hair, I asked my then 95-year-old mother why I didn’t have red hair. Still witty to the end, she said, with an eye wink, “there are some things we just don’t talk about son”.

How kind of her to spare you the knowledge that you were adopted!

;-)

Regards,

[Red Badger]

“Momma’s baby. Daddy’s maybe.”....................

[SunkenCiv]

Or tupperware. Really, really big tupperware.

[Max in Utah]

What round for massive elephant?

Round not invented yet, must use proper pointy stick placement.