Credit: Lutz Kindler, LEIZAIt was 2 years ago that the same team during the analysis of bones found at the Neumark-Nord website, in a former lignite mine in Saxony-Anhalt, discovered the very first proof that Neanderthals actively hunted straight-tusked elephants, the biggest terrestrial mammals of the Pleistocene.”The outcomes of the more current assessment of the bones from Gröbern and Taubach now reveal that the searching of these elephants by Neanderthals was not an isolated phenomenon but must have been a more regular activity,” stressed Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Professor of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology at JGU and Director of the Archaeological Research Center and Museum of Human Behavioral Evolution MONREPOS in Neuwied, an institute run under the aegis of LEIZA. The information now gotten in relation to the organized exploitation of straight-tusked elephants shows that Neanderthals must have collected, at least briefly, in larger groups or mastered methods that allowed them to maintain and keep big amounts of foodstuffs– or both.In a follow-up job, the researchers hope to find out more about how Neanderthals hunted these huge elephants and how their hunting activities impacted these and other prey animals as well as their environments.
