England, signs of 400,000-years-old elephant eating found

This video is about Palaeoloxodon antiquus.

From the BBC:

Early signs of elephant butchers

Bones and tusks dating back 400,000 years are the earliest signs in Britain of ancient humans butchering elephants for meat, say archaeologists.

Remains of a single adult elephant surrounded by stone tools were found in northwest Kent during work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

Scientists believe hunters used the tools to cut off the meat, after killing the animal with wooden spears.

The find is described in the Journal of Quaternary Science.

The first signs of the Stone Age site were uncovered by constructors at Southfleet Road in Ebbsfleet, Kent.

Excavations revealed the skeleton of an extinct species of elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) lying at the edge of what would once have been a small lake.

Flint tools lay scattered around, suggesting the animal had been cut up by a tribe of the early humans around at the time, known as Homo heidelbergensis.

“It is the earliest site of elephant butchery in Britain,” Dr Francis Wenban-Smith of the University of Southampton told the BBC News website.

“In fact it is the only such site in Britain and it is very rare to find undisturbed evidence of this kind.”

Early hunting ground

Dr Wenban-Smith believes the elephant, which was twice the size of those living today, was probably brought down by a pack of hunters armed with wooden spears.

“They either hunted it or possibly found it in an injured state and then killed it,” he explained.

“Then they got some flint tools from nearby and they would have swarmed all over it and cut off the meat.

“They would have been carrying off armfuls of meat to their local base camp.”

Rhino feast

The elephant would have been eaten raw, as there is no evidence that fire was used for cooking at the time.

The hunter gatherers probably also feasted on other large mammals, as the bones of buffalo, rhino, deer and horse were also found nearby.

Early humans used tiny, flint ‘surgical’ tools to butcher elephants. A new study reveals that the early humans known as Acheulians crafted tiny flint tools out of recycled larger discarded instruments as part of a comprehensive animal-butchery tool kit: here.

Homo heidelbergensis in France: here.

Around 150,000 years ago, Homo heidelbergensis cavemen ate ducks that they either roasted or consumed whole and raw. The feast happened at Bolomor Cave in Valencia, Spain, according to a recent study: here.

Age of earliest human burial in Britain pinpointed. The Red Lady remains are 4000 years older than previously thought: here.

Neanderthal man in evolution: here.

See also here.

South Africa: Paranthropus. Paranthropus: here.

How a prehistoric ‘super river’ turned Britain into an island nation: here.