A new analysis of Neanderthal hunting patterns suggests science may have been underestimating the early hominins for a long time. Neanderthals that lived more than 100,000 years ago were much more sophisticated hunters than previously believed, according to a report published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The remains of two 120,000-year-old deer carcasses unearthed 20 years ago have been analyzed using microscopic imaging for the first time. The images show cut marks, or “hunting lesions”, indicating humans’ early ancestors used weapons to stalk and kill their prey. Researchers then recreated 1.8-meter-long (5.9-foot) spears based on 300-400,000-year-old wooden staves – the oldest-known spear-like tools used to kill prey – found in the United Kingdom and Germany. Through conducting ballistic experiments they found the hunters couldn’t have thrown the spears and instead probably stabbed the animals near their hips while in close proximity.
It suggests Neanderthals not only hunted at close range but also probably worked together in organized ambushes. All in all, it provides a much more detailed look at Neanderthals and shows they weren’t the “knuckle-dragging brutes” they were previously thought to be.
"This suggests that Neanderthals approached animals very closely and thrust, not threw, their spears at the animals, most likely from an underhand angle," said researcher Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in a statement. She noted that this confrontational hunting style would have required careful planning, hiding, and cooperation between different individual hunters.
"As far as spear use is concerned, we now finally have the 'crime scene' fitting to the proverbial 'smoking gun'," she added.
This study is part of a growing body of work showing Neanderthals were much more sophisticated than modern science has been giving them credit for. Previous archaeological finds prove they buried their dead and decorated caves at least 20,000 years before humans arrived in Europe.
Since the 1980s, excavations in the area have turned up stone artifacts and tens of thousands of bones from large mammals, including deer, horses, and bovines.
Neanderthals lived in Europe 300,000 years ago, but died out around 30,000 years ago when our species took over.
Front and back view of a hunting lesion in the pelvis of an extinct fallow deer, killed by Neandertals 120,000 years ago on a lake shore close to current-day Halle (Germany). Credit: Eduard Pop, MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Leibniz-Research Institute for Archaeology
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