Three times larger than the Asian ones, they recall the oliphants of the Lord of the Rings. Group hunting and food conservation: new hypotheses on the sedentary life of our ancestors
They were big three times more specimens that still live in Asia today and were even more imposing gods mammoth lanosi. Each of them could weigh up to 13 tonsi.e. a huge reserve of meat for the populations of Neanderthal who lived in the territory of present-day Saxony. In short, the images of the «elephanti” of the Lord of the Rings, “as big as a building” and “with two horns in their mouths”, so imposing as to arouse fear in anyone who came across them and to be able to host war towers capable of containing dozens of soldiers on their backs. The fantasy of Tolkien it is now found in bones dating from 125 thousand years ago and found in the eighties in the territory of the German city of Halle, in Saxony, which today covers 135 square kilometers and is home to 240,000 people. Its origins date back to the Celtic era but a new scientific study on the bones found suggests that this territory was inhabited in a stable form by our first ancestors.
The results of the research were published in the journal
Science Advances
after examination of the remains of skeletons of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon ancient), dating back to the Pleistocene period. The find, as mentioned, actually dates back to about forty years ago, but the study was only carried out in recent months. The bones were discovered in the bed of a large coal pit, which has since been transformed into an artificial lake.
The researchers analyzed the bones and took measurements on them numerous signs perhaps caused by rudimentary flint tools. Those engravings would be the confirmation of the use of elephants as a food source: the bones would in fact have been stripped with the use of cutting tools. “This constitutes the first clear evidence of elephant hunting in human evolution,” he explained Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, a professor of archeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands who took part in the research. But such large animals necessarily had to be faced by a large number of people and this suggests that Neanderthals lived in larger groups than previously thought. Of course, she adds Will Roebroeks, co-author of the study, “hunting these giant animals and completely slaughtering them was part of the livelihood activities in this place.” Which also leads us to think that those populations were more sedentary than assumed up to now.
The researchers speculate that the hunt was particularly for male elephants, who are easier to hunt than female elephants who tend to move in herds to protect their young. “While adult males are solitary animals most of the time – notes Roebroeks -. So they are easier to immobilize by driving them into mud and traps. Another element that emerged is that Neanderthals were able to preserve the enormous quantities of food provided by each individual elephant. Up to 2,500 portions of food could be obtained from each specimen. Hence the idea that large social units could have developed around these animals. Traces of coal fires have also been found: the hypothesis is that they were used to dry meat by hanging it on racks.
February 2, 2023 (change February 2, 2023 | 16:12)
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