Ancient humans in Italy butchered elephants and made tools from their bones

Unknown Early Hominins Ate Elephants and Then Used Their Bones to Make Tools

Learn more about the archaeological discovery of an ancient elephant carcass surrounded by hundreds of butchery tools.

Did Central Italy’s Hominins Develop a Strategy for Butchering Elephants? - Archaeology Magazine

(a) Archaeological and paleontological deposit at Casal Lumbroso, Rome, Italy, and (b) drawing of the large mammal bones exposed on the main surface ROME, ITALY—According to a statement released by the Public Library of Science, early humans in central Italy some 400,000 years ago tended to butcher elephant carcasses with small stone tools, and then modify elephant bones to make larger tools. Beniamino Mecozzi of the Sapienza University of Rome …

Ancient humans in Italy butchered elephants and made tools from their bones

Researchers in Italy discovered 400,000-year-old evidence that ancient humans butchered elephants for food and tools. At the Casal Lumbroso site near Rome, they found hundreds of bones and stone implements, many showing impact marks from butchery. The findings reveal a consistent prehistoric strategy for resource use during warmer Middle Pleistocene periods.