The open-access journal PLOS ONE published a study led by Beniamino Mecozzi of Sapienza University of Rome that offers one of the most precise views of early human behavior in Europe. The team examined the Casal Lumbroso site on the north-western edge of Rome, where an excavator struck an elephant tusk in 2017. Researchers recovered more than 300 skeletal fragments from a single straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) and more than 500 stone artifacts, creating a detailed record of how hominins obtained food and raw materials during the Middle Pleistocene.
Volcanic ash layers dated the event to a 3,000-year window about 404,000 years ago, a mild interval between two glacial episodes. The elephant, an animal that could stand 4.2 meters at the shoulder, died at roughly 45 to 49 years of age. The study could not rule out that hominins drove the animal into a natural mud trap, but natural death remained equally plausible; stone tools only about one inch long would have made an active kill difficult.
Most stone flakes measured under three centimeters and were made of flint or local limestone, suggesting that larger cobbles were scarce. People therefore turned to the elephant itself for raw material. More than 15 percent of the skeleton showed fresh fractures produced by blunt force soon after death, indicating deliberate breakage of sturdy limb bones. “With the help of stone tools, the people of that time seem to have shaped the bones in such a way that with the now sharp bones, pieces of meat could be cut from the animal,” said Mecozzi, according to ORF Science.
Several reworked bones ranged from 10 to 36 centimeters, far larger than the accompanying flint flakes, and provided cutting edges that replaced missing heavy stones. The combination of small stone blades and hefty bone tools pointed to what Panamericana TV called “a common strategy of comprehensive utilization of the animal, both for food and for the manufacture of instruments.”
Plant pollen and remains of a two-horned rhinoceros, red deer, wolf, and turtle sketched a wooded, humid landscape. Comparable sites such as La Polledrara di Cecanibbio showed that hominins repeated this pattern of elephant exploitation whenever climate conditions allowed. “Reconstructing these events means bringing to life ancient and vanished scenarios, revealing a world where humans, animals, and ecosystems interacted in ways that still surprise and fascinate us today,” wrote the study’s authors, according to IFLScience.
The identity of the toolmakers remained open. Mecozzi favored Homo heidelbergensis, while paleoanthropologist Gerret Dusseldorp told Discover Magazine that early Neanderthals, known in Europe from as early as 430,000 years ago, were “the most likely culprits.” Either way, the artifacts pointed to a material culture more complex than once believed.
“Our study shows how, 400,000 years ago, in the area of Rome, human groups were able to take advantage of an extraordinary resource like the elephant—not only as food, but also transforming their bones into tools,” said Mecozzi in Discover Magazine. The precise dating, abundant remains, and unmistakable bone-tool manufacture placed Casal Lumbroso among the best-preserved records of elephant use in Europe, offering a rare glimpse into the ingenuity of ancient hominins.
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