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Unearthing a Neanderthal ‘Pantry’ from 125,000 Years Ago: Discover Its Contents
Around 125,000 years ago, Neanderthals extensively hunted giant forest elephants, weighing several tons and even larger than mammoths. They likely gathered and consumed the meat and fat in larger groups. Has a Neanderthal “pantry” been uncovered?
In recent years, scientists have been publishing articles showing that Neanderthals had a much more complex repertoire of behaviors than previously thought. There is evidence that this human species even created rock art in European caves before modern humans.
New analyses from Germany shed new light on the hunting system and meat management of Neanderthals.
Forest elephants — giants of Paleolithic Europe
Palaeoloxodon antiquus, or the forest elephant, lived in Europe and Western Asia from 800,000 to 100,000 years ago. These were gigantic animals, reaching a height of up to four meters at the withers and weighing even several tons. At that time, they were the largest land animals, much larger than contemporary African and Asian elephants, and even larger than the extinct woolly mammoth.
A team of researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz (JGU), the Leibniz Center for Archaeology (LEIZA), and the University of Leiden…
