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Front and rear view of a hunting injury in a cervical vertebra of an extinct deer, killed by Neanderthals 120,000 years ago on a shore of a lake near the present Halle (Germany). Credit: Eduard Pop, MONREPOS Archaeological Research Center and Museum for the Evolution of Human Behavior, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Leibniz Research Institute for Archeology,
Neanderthals were capable of sophisticated and collective hunting strategies, according to an analysis of prehistoric animal remains from Germany that contradict the lasting image of these early humans as brutes who drag themselves to their knees.
Cutting marks – or "hunting lesions" – on the bones of two 120,000-year-old deer provide the earliest evidence that such weapons were used to hunt and kill prey, according to a newspaper study. Ecology of nature and evolution.
Microscopic imaging and ballistic imaging experiments reproducing the impact of blows confirmed that at least one was delivered with a low speed wooden spear.
"This suggests that the Neanderthals approached the animals very closely and threw, not thrown, their spears at the animals, probably from a sneaky angle," says Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, researcher at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.
"Such a way of driving off confrontation required careful planning and concealment, as well as close cooperation between individual hunters," she told AFP.
Neanderthals lived in Europe about 300,000 years ago until they died 30,000 years ago, outnumbered by our species.
It has long been thought that these evolutionary cousins - modern Europeans and Asians have about two percent of Neanderthal DNA – were not smart enough to compete, and lacked symbolic culture, a trait supposedly unique to modern humans.
Angle of impact estimated compared to a standing deer for the hunting injury observed in the basin of an extinct deer, killed by Neanderthals 120,000 years ago on a shore of a nearby lake of the current Halle (Germany). Credit: Eduard Pop, MONREPOS Archaeological Research Center and Museum for the Evolution of Human Behavior, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Leibniz Research Institute for Archeology
But recent discoveries have revealed a species with more intelligence and know-how than suspected.
They buried their dead ritually, created tools and painted animal frescoes on cave walls at least 64,000 years ago, 20,000 years before the arrival of homo sapiens in Europe.
The secrets of old bones
Hominids – the term used to describe early human species, as well as ours – probably began to hunt with weapons over half a million years ago.
Wood sticks dating from 300 000 to 400 000 years old, found in England and Germany, are the oldest known lance tools for killing prey. But there was no physical evidence as to their use, leaving scientists to speculate.
The new discovery of the Neumark-North region in Germany eliminates this doubt, said Gaudzinski-Windheuser.
"Regarding the use of the spear, we finally have the" crime scene "that corresponds to the proverbial" smoking gun, "she said.
Front and rear view of a hunting injury in the basin of an extinct deer, killed by Neanderthals 120,000 years ago on a shore of a lake near the present Halle (Germany). Credit: Eduard Pop, MONREPOS Archaeological Research Center and Museum for the Evolution of Human Behavior, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Leibniz Research Institute for Archeology
Excavations carried out on the shores of the lake from the same site since the 1980s have revealed the presence of tens of thousands of bones from large mammals, including red deer and fallow deer, horses and cattle.
They also discovered thousands of stone objects, attesting to a flourishing Neanderthal presence in what was a forest environment during an interglacial period 135,000 and 115,000 years ago.
The old deer bones examined for the study were unearthed more than 20 years ago, but new technologies have revealed their secrets: what injuries were deadly, what kind of weapon was used and if the spears were projected from far or near.
The damage done was also particularly pronounced, making it possible "the replica and forensic style analysis in this article," writes Annemieke Milks, a researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the United States. University College London.
"Ballistic work is experimental archeology at its best," she commented, also in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
We should also consider the possibility that the Neanderthal men also launched their spears, she added.
Explore further:
Neanderthals' lack of drawing ability may be related to hunting techniques
More information:
Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser et al. Proof of short-distance hunting by the last interglacial Neanderthals, Nature Ecology and Evolution (2018). DOI: 10.1038 / s41559-018-0596-1
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