Straight-Tusked Elephant Exploitation Was Widespread among Neanderthals, Archaeologists Say

Science News ^ | December 7, 2023 | News Staff

[SunkenCiv]

Straight-tusked elephants were the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene epoch, present in Europe and western Asia between 800,000 and 100,000 years ago.

These animals had a very wide head and extremely long tusks, and were roughly three times larger than that of living Asian elephants, twice that of African ones, and also much larger than woolly mammoths.

Estimates of maximum shoulder height vary from 3 to 4.2 m (10-14 feet) and body mass from 4.5 to 13 tons for females and males, respectively.

"We have estimated that the meat and fat supplied by the body of an adult Palaeoloxodon antiquus bull would have been sufficient to satisfy the daily calorie intake of at least 2,500 adult Neanderthals," Professor Gaudzinski-Windheuser said.

[SunkenCiv]

Image credit: Hsu Shu-yu.

[SunkenCiv]

• Mysterious 25,000 Year Old Building Made of 60 Mammoth's Bones [03/19/2020]
• Neandertals' mammoth building project: Extinct hominids may have been first to build with bones [12/07/2011]
• Neanderthals Conquered Mammoths, Why Not Us? [09/18/2008]
• Researchers solve mammoth evolutionary puzzle: The woollies weren't picky, happy to interbreed [05/30/2011]
• African elephant is two species, researchers say [12/21/2010]
• Mammoth Findings: Asian Elephant Is Closest Living Kin [01/02/2006]

[billorites]

So, we’re talking leftovers.

[ComputerGuy]

...at least 2,500 adult Neanderthals... To bring one down?

[billorites]

[PIF]

[PIF]

...at least 2,500 adult Neanderthals... To bring one down?
—
To feed that many.

“... sufficient to satisfy the daily calorie intake of at least 2,500 adult Neanderthals”

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Estimates of maximum shoulder height vary from 3 to 4.2 m (10-14 feet) and body mass from 4.5 to 13 tons for females and males, respectively.

"We have estimated that the meat and fat supplied by the body of an adult Palaeoloxodon antiquus bull would have been sufficient to satisfy the daily calorie intake of at least 2,500 adult Neanderthals," Professor Gaudzinski-Windheuser said.

You eat 13 tons, and what do you get?

[GOPJ]

Another day older and deeper in debt... or is that 16 tons?

[Reily]

Wash it all down with Paleolithic Ale

https://robbreport.co.uk/food-drink/spirits/paleolithic-ale-scientists-discover-evidence-of-the-first-british-beer-2792829/

[SunkenCiv]

I wonder how many Paleeoloxodons could be satisfied from eating 2,500 adult Neandertals?

[whitney69]

They were always sent to the front of the line.

wy69

[SunkenCiv]

[’Civ opens his file of sure-fire gags]

Plus, one wonders what they used to hold all that coleslaw.

[x]

What happened to the Gay Tusked Elephants?

[x]

Recently discovered cave paintings reveal that the Neanderthals also told some rather cruel Straight-Tusk Elephant jokes.

[SunkenCiv]

The GTE? The whole thing transitioned a couple of times, until it became part of one of the larger regional landline companies. What, what? :^)

[Waverunner]

The stone age family.... Good old days... Then on to the drive in...

[Waverunner]

Of course the main use of mammoths were as vacuum cleaners and carwashes.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

Thanks, SunkenCiv.

[bunkerhill7]

The gay-tusked elephants protested in the middle of the road, blocked Neanderthals from going hunting straight elephants, were captured and put into zoos so Neanderthals could look at them and laugh.