https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/world/neanderthals-hunted-giant-elephants-scn/index.html

The CNN article indicates that the researchers think the evidence
suggests active elephant hunting. They also assume that larger groups
of Neanderthals were required to process and consume the meat than we
have evidence existed.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add8186

When you read the original article you find out that the 70 elephants
were processed over a period of 2,400 years, and at their time of
slaughter the area was a muddy bog that helped preserve the bone piles
created by slaughter and processing. To me this looks like a place
where some glacial lake turned into some muddy bog at some time of the
year and it offered an opportunity for Neanderthals to occasionally find
a trapped elephant and probably kill and process the animal. The
geological analysis indicates that the site was where the lake
transitioned over time progressing and regressing, and the muddy bog
would have been during regression over a 2,400 year period. My take is
that this was some type of pocket where fine sediments would accumulate
when covered by the lake, and that when it regressed and the elephants
had to follow the receding water they would get trapped there. 70 loads
of meat over 2,400 years doesn't seem like some type if systematic
hunting when you know that the the sites were muddy bogs that would
preserve the bones. Sometimes more than one elephant were part of the
bone piles, so my guess is that it was advantagous scavenging. They
find a skewed age distribution where 96% of the animals were over 20
years of age (adults) and 40% were over 40 years of age. With a high percentage of males in the mix. If they were like African elephants
males would have been solitary. These were likely the largest and
oldest elephants of the population, and it doesn't make sense that they
would have been actively hunted. Stuck in the mud seems to make more
sense. Would you rather hunt something twice the size of an African
elephant or a juvenile?

What I'd like to know is what time of the year they think that these
elephants were slaughtered. If it was in cooler weather even a small
group could have taken their time in processing the carcasses. The
processors were very thorough, and pretty much took all the meat that
there was, so it doesn't seem to me to be some windfall hunt.

This was during the last interglacial when temperatures got to be warmer
than they are now, and these elephants were temperate climate adapted
that were taking over the territory of cold adapted mammoths during a
warm period. P. antiquus is supposed to be most closely related to
African forest elephants, and it looks like African genetics got out of
Africa around 2.5 million years ago. They likely share a common
ancestor with Asian elephants and mammoths around 6 million years ago.
I don't know where they survived during the glacial periods, and they apparently didn't survive the last glacial period, while the smaller
Asian elephant did.

My take is that more work needs to be done before there are any claims
of systematic elephant hunting by Neanderthals. It could be that the
muddy bog just happened to preserve the bones of the hunted elephants,
but getting stuck in the mud and having someone take advantage of that
when you have 70 incidences that happened over 2,400 years when the area
just happened to be in transition from being lake covered to muddy bog.
The lake would have been at it's lowest level at the end of summer and
into fall.

Ron Okimoto

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