125,000 years ago, straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) populated the prehistoric Europe.
Image Credit: Hodari Nundu
(CC-BY-4.0)
Scientific Frontline: Extended "At a Glance" Summary: Ice Age Elephant Migration and Neanderthal Hunting
The Core Concept: European straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), which were hunted by Neanderthals, undertook extensive migrations across hundreds of kilometers in Ice Age Europe. These complex life histories, including diet and mobility, are preserved and readable within the incremental layers of their fossilized tooth enamel.
Key Distinction/Mechanism: Unlike traditional macro-fossil analysis, this research utilizes a multi-proxy approach combining stable isotope analysis (carbon, oxygen, and strontium) with paleoproteomics. Because tooth enamel grows slowly layer by layer, researchers can extract a high-resolution, sequential timeline of an individual animal's migration patterns, dietary shifts, and sex directly from the proteins and environmental data locked within a single tooth.
Origin/History: The fossil material originates from the former Neumark-Nord lignite mine in Germany, an area known for extensive evidence of Neanderthal activity. The current findings result from a collaborative, international research effort involving the Rhine-Main Universities Alliance, the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA), and the Frankfurt Isotope and Element Research Center (FIERCE).
Major Frameworks/Components:
- Strontium Isotope Analysis: Analyzes isotopic signatures deposited along the growth direction of the molars, revealing that individual elephants spent multi-year periods in geologically distinct regions of Europe.
- Paleoproteomics: Applies the study of ancient proteins to fossilized enamel to accurately determine the biological sex of individual Pleistocene animals.
- Isotopic Dietary Reconstruction: Utilizes carbon and oxygen isotopes to map seasonal variations in the elephants' diet and the localized environmental climates they traversed.
Branch of Science: 1. Paleontology: Primary discipline concerning the study of the extinct Palaeoloxodon antiquus. 2. Archaeology: Focuses on the behavioral evidence of Neanderthals hunting these megaherbivores. 3. Biogeochemistry / Isotope Geochemistry: Utilized for analyzing the elemental composition of the fossilized enamel. 4. Paleoproteomics: The specialized study of ancient proteins used for biological identification.
Future Application: The methodology combining paleoproteomics and multi-isotope tracking can be applied to a wider array of extinct megafauna. This will enable scientists to map lost Pleistocene ecosystems, track the ecological impact of early hominin hunting strategies, and better understand how large mammalian species respond to drastic climatic shifts.
Why It Matters: This research fundamentally reshapes our understanding of Pleistocene ecology and Neanderthal behavioral complexity. Proving that giant straight-tusked elephants were highly mobile across vast geographic regions highlights the advanced tracking, cooperative planning, and hunting capabilities of Neanderthals who successfully preyed upon them.
Fossil teeth can preserve remarkable information because tooth enamel grows slowly and records environmental data layer by layer. An international research team with the participation of scientists from the Rhine-Main Universities Alliance has now reconstructed the life histories of four European straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) by analyzing their teeth. These elephants – significantly larger than modern species – were the largest land mammals of prehistoric Europe and lived during the last interglacial period around 125,000 years ago. A 2023 study showed that they were prey for Neanderthal hunters. Neumark-Nord in northeastern Germany was a lake landscape in the last interglacial period. It is rich in archeological finds discovered during lignite mining. The area in Saxony-Anhalt is one of the most important European paleontological sites for the European straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus. Fossil remains of more than 70 elephants have been found there – animals that were once hunted in this region by Neanderthals. Because of this unusually large number of finds, the site provides a unique insight into the relationship between these massive animals and the humans of the Pleistocene.
An international research team from Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States has now examined the teeth of four of these elephants in greater detail. Using an innovative approach that combines the analysis of isotopes (Carbon, Oxygen, and Strontium) and proteins (palaeoproteomics), the researchers reconstructed migration behavior, diet, and even the sex of several individuals. Strontium isotope analyses along the direction of growth of the molars showed that the elephants had spent several years in different regions of Europe. The data were collected in Frankfurt by Elena Armaroli and Federico Lugli under the supervision of Prof. Wolfgang Müller, one of the directors of the Frankfurt Isotope and Element Research Center (FIERCE) at Goethe University. The Carbon and Oxygen isotope analyses were conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz.
Elena Armaroli, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) in Italy and the study's first author, explains: “Thanks to isotope analyses, we can trace the movements of elephants almost as if we had a travel diary that has been preserved in their teeth for more than one hundred thousand years."
“Some of the elephants we studied were animals that did not stay in just one area," says Federico Lugli, associate professor at UNIMORE and, like Armaroli, a corresponding author of the study. “Their teeth show that they traveled very long distances – up to 300 kilometers – before reaching what is now Neumark-Nord. This allows us to reconstruct their home ranges and understand how these animals used the landscape.
The research team also identified the sex of the four elephants: three males and – most likely – one female. Two of the males show isotope signatures that differ significantly from those expected for local bed rocks in the area of Neumark-Nord. This suggests that the males, much like modern elephants, ranged over larger territories than the females.
Elena Armaroli concludes: “The concentration of remains and the isotope profile of the animals suggest that Neanderthals did not kill the elephants merely when a favorable opportunity arose. Everything points to organized hunting in which even such enormous prey animals could be deliberately targeted. For this, Neanderthals must have known the landscape well, cooperated, and planned."
“This study also marks an important methodological advance," emphasizes Federico Lugli. “For the first time, paleoproteomics has been applied to European straight-tusked elephants, allowing us to determine the sex of individual animals from proteins preserved in tooth enamel."
The study is the latest in a series of ongoing scientific analyses of material from the former Neumark-Nord lignite mine. The research projects are conducted by a joint team from MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution in Neuwied – a department of Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) –, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), and Leiden University. They have been made possible through the continuous support of the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt.
The aim of these research projects is to better determine the different dimensions of the Neanderthals' ecological footprint. The results show that Neanderthals were active gatherers and hunters operating within a rich lakeshore ecosystem. The site provides evidence that people systematically butchered animal carcasses at different locations and extracted fat from large mammals on a large scale. They also consumed plant foods such as hazelnuts and acorns. Neanderthals appear to have repeatedly used the resources of this ecosystem and may even have modified the landscape through the use of fire. They were likely organized in larger social groups than previously assumed.
“What we see at Neumark-Nord is not a picture of mere survival, but of a population that understood its environment and interacted with it actively and in complex ways over a period of at least 2,500 years," says study author Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, professor of prehistoric and protohistoric archeology at JGU and head of institute at MONREPOS.
“At least some of male elephants uncovered at Neumark spent some of their adolescence and young adulthood away from the Neumark lake land. If Neumark was a point of attraction for elephants from different regions aggregating here or the Neumark area was the homeland of an elephant population, with individuals leaving the area for a certain time span, we can't extract from isotopes alone", says co-author Professor Thomas Tütken from the Applied and Analytical Paleontology Group at JGU. “To understand the population dynamics of the Neumark elephants and with that Neanderthal hunting at Neumark, we have started a genetic study of the Neumark elephants", adds Lutz Kindler, a member of the Neumark-Nord team and researcher at MONREPOS and JGU.
Participating institutions:
- University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
- Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
- California Institute of Technology, Davis, USA
- Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany
- MONREPOS Archaeological Research Center and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution, Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA), Neuwied, Germany
- Leiden University, The Netherlands
- University of California, Davis, USA
- Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany
- Columbia University, New York, USA
Published in journal: Science Advances
Authors: Elena Armaroli, Federico Lugli, Théo Tacail, Lutz Kindler, Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Fulco Scherjon, Wil Roebroeks, Glendon Parker, Hubert Vonhof, Anna Cipriani, Thomas Tütken, and Wolfgang Müller
Source/Credit: Goethe University Frankfurt
Reference Number: pal031626_01