The elephants hunted by the Neanderthals, now extinct, were huge animals: twice the size of modern African elephants, they could weigh up to 13 tons and were 4 meters tall at the shoulders, writes AFP.

Despite their impressive size, Neanderthals hunted these elephants 125,000 years ago, according to a study published for the first time on Wednesday, shedding new light on our understanding of these prehistoric humans.

“Neanderthals were capable of foraging huge amounts of food, not just hunting horses, cattle or deer,” Will Roebrook, co-author of the study, published in the journal Science Advances, told AFP.

“Whether they kept it for a long time — which we didn’t know — or simply because they lived in much larger groups than previously thought,” with more mouths to feed, he explained.

The researchers estimated that breaking up the prey, which weighed an average of 10 tons before the meat rotted, would have required several days of work for about 20 people and provided enough food for three months for 25 people or one month for 100 people. To preserve it, they may have smoked it.

How did Neanderthals kill these mastodons? It’s impossible to say for sure, but one hypothesis is that they immobilized them by pushing them into the mud where they got stuck, or dug traps before killing them with spears.

A tool for cuts on bones

Researchers have long wondered about the presence of elephant bones near stone tools at several archaeological sites. Could Neanderthals have hunted them, or did they just eat dead animals?

Definitive evidence of hunting, whether a blow mark or a spear embedded in a bone, has never been observed – which is not surprising, given the size of these animals (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), which genetic studies have linked to the elephants of modern Africa.

But at the so-called Neumark Nord 1 site, near the modern-day city of Halle in Germany, a clue was found that alerted scientists that the remains of about 70 elephants, the largest known group, were mostly adult males. According to the study, this lack of diversity is the result of selection by hunters.

Unlike females in herds, solitary males were easier to kill. They also represented more food due to their larger size.

Then the researchers examined the extremely well-preserved bones of almost sixty of these elephants under a microscope: they showed traces of flint tools used by Neanderthals to cut them – incisions no more than a few centimeters long.

“These are classic cut marks that result from cutting the meat and scraping it off the bones,” explained Will Roebroeks, a professor of archeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

The environment in which these Neanderthals lived and where the animals were found near the lake could have been favorable for their entrapment due to the soft soil, according to the researcher. After death, the elephants were slaughtered on the spot.

About 40 of these specimens have been found in just 300 years, leading researchers to estimate that the animal was killed every five to six years.

Hunting has been practiced for generations

According to the study, Neanderthals have been hunting elephants for at least 2000 years, i.e. dozens of generations.

But Neanderthals lived on Earth for a very long time (between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago).

In Europe, “most of the time it was much colder than today,” in contrast to the period analyzed at the Neumark site, Will Robrooks explained. However, “the image of Neanderthals that we have is very much oriented toward colder periods.”

With more food and a favorable climate, they were able to lead a more sedentary lifestyle in large groups. But their number remains extremely difficult to accurately determine.

In any case, according to Will Robrooks, the study shows that “the Neanderthal world was very diverse” and that they “were not simply slaves to nature.”