{"id":388757,"date":"2026-03-17T00:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/388757\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T00:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:44:15","slug":"neanderthals-may-have-hunted-giant-elephants-that-roamed-across-prehistoric-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/388757\/","title":{"rendered":"Neanderthals May Have Hunted Giant Elephants that Roamed across Prehistoric Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chemical clues preserved in the teeth of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus)<\/a> from the 125,000-year-old site of Neumark-Nord in Germany suggest these massive animals traveled hundreds of kilometers \u2014 and that Neanderthals may have deliberately hunted them at the site.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Straight-tusked<\/a><\/p>\n

Straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) were the largest land mammals of the European Pleistocene. Image credit: Hodari Nundu, CC-BY-4.0.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe straight-tusked elephant was an iconic species of the European Pleistocene Interglacial ecosystem, sharing the landscape with Neanderthals during the warmer periods of the Middle and Late Pleistocene,\u201d said Dr. Elena Armaroli, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts role as a resource for hominin populations has long been acknowledged, with archaeological findings demonstrating Neanderthal use of elephants as a source of food and their bones for tool making across Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil recently, direct evidence that the straight-tusked elephant was actively hunted<\/a>, rather than scavenged, remained scarce and debated.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the new study, the authors analyzed the molars of four straight-tusked elephants found at the Neumark-Nord site in northeastern Germany.<\/p>\n

Strontium isotope analyses along the teeth\u2019s growth axis showed that the animals had spent several years in different regions of Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to isotope analyses, we can trace the movements of elephants almost as if we had a travel diary that has been preserved in their teeth for more than one hundred thousand years,\u201d Dr. Armaroli said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the elephants we studied were animals that did not stay in just one area,\u201d added Dr. Federico Lugli, also from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir teeth show that they traveled very long distances \u2014 up to 300 km \u2014 before reaching what is now Neumark-Nord.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis allows us to reconstruct their home ranges and understand how these animals used the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers also identified the sex of the four elephants: three males and one female.<\/p>\n

Two of the males show isotope signatures that differ significantly from those expected for local bed rocks in the area of Neumark-Nord.<\/p>\n

This suggests that the males, much like modern elephants, ranged over larger territories than the females.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concentration of remains and the isotope profile of the animals suggest that Neanderthals did not kill the elephants merely when a favorable opportunity arose,\u201d Dr. Armaroli said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything points to organized hunting in which even such enormous prey animals could be deliberately targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this, Neanderthals must have known the landscape well, cooperated, and planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis study also marks an important methodological advance,\u201d Dr. Lugli said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time, paleoproteomics has been applied to European straight-tusked elephants, allowing us to determine the sex of individual animals from proteins preserved in tooth enamel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The findings<\/a> were published March 13 in the journal Science Advances.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Elena Armaroli et al. 2026. Life histories of straight-tusked elephants from the Last Interglacial Neanderthal site of Neumark-Nord (~125 ka). Science Advances 12 (11); doi: 10.1126\/sciadv.adz0114<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chemical clues preserved in the teeth of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) from the 125,000-year-old site of Neumark-Nord in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[2368,18,1425,1015,4696,6621,3291,3293,1123,7044,19,17,6395,19443,3295,177534,177535,177536,48772,48773,133,177537,19447],"class_list":["post-388757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-diet","tag-eire","tag-elephant","tag-europe","tag-fossil","tag-germany","tag-homo-neanderthalensis","tag-human","tag-hunting","tag-ice-age","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-migration","tag-molar","tag-neanderthal","tag-neumark-nord","tag-palaeoloxodon","tag-palaeoloxodon-antiquus","tag-pleistocene","tag-proboscidea","tag-science","tag-straight-tusk-elephant","tag-teeth"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116241751587193016","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}