The giant elephant species that lived about 125,000 years ago was twice as large as the African elephants that still exist today. Photo/Science Alert/MONREPOS Archaeological Research Center
This description of the appearance of the giant elephant was carried out after conducting research on around 3,400 straight elephant ivory bones. The entire elephant bone was found at a site near the German town of Neumark-Nord, where it was first discovered by coal miners in the 1980s.
It is one of the sites for studying Neanderthal activity in the Last Interglacial period (LIG), around 130,000–115,000 years ago. It is known that Neaderthals hunted giant elephants for their meat and eaten together in groups.
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Neanderthals were humans like us, but they were a different species called Homo neanderthalensis. Along with the Asian peoples known as Denisovans, Neanderthals are our closest early human relatives.
Recent fossil and DNA evidence suggests that the Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated by at least 500,000 years. Some genetic calibrations place the difference at about 650,000 years ago.
Researchers estimate it takes a team of 25 people between 3-5 days to skin and then dry or smoke elephant meat. Evidence of charcoal burning around the archaeological site suggests the meat may have been dried, which is one way to make it last longer.
The catch would be enough to feed 350 people for a week, or 100 people for a month. Although other researchers mention that there were also Neanderthals who lived in small groups of about 20 people.
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“They actually formed an environment together, with fire, and also had a huge impact on the largest animals that existed at that time,” said archaeologist Wil Roebroeks, from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, quoted from the Science Alert page.
Neanderthals at that time worked together and in large groups to hunt large prey, such as straight ivory elephants. They usually hunt male elephants in order to get a larger amount of meat.
(wib)
