Evidence that human ancestors living 500,000 years ago in what is now the Revadim archaeological site used their stone tools on bones of elephants and other mammals, perhaps to butcher them for food, is being reported in the journal PLoS ONE.
Straight-tusk elephant rib with cut marks in association with flint tools, including a handaxe. Image credit: Solodenko N et al.
The Acheulian site Revadim is located on the southern coastal plain of Israel. It is at least 500,000 years old, as indicated by minimum ages retrieved by paleomagnetism analysis and uranium series dates.
During recent excavation seasons, conducted on the site under the permission of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Tel Aviv University archaeologists have found thousands of animal bones, including the remains of the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), the aurochs (Bos primigenius), the mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella), horses (Equus sp.), the red deer (Cervus elaphus), among others.
The straight-tusk elephant – an extinct species of elephant closely related to the living Asian elephant – is the most dominant species in the faunal assemblages of Revadim, with 155 bones identified.
In the new PLoS ONE paper, the archaeologists report the surprising discovery of the butchered straight-tusk elephant remains in association with two stone tools 500,000 years old: a biface (56 mm in length, 48 mm wide and 16 mm thick) and a scraper (44 mm in length, 36 mm wide and 20 mm thick).
“At the Revadim quarry, a wonderfully preserved site a half-million years old, we found butchered animal remains, including an elephant rib bone which had been neatly cut by a stone tool, alongside flint hand axes and scrapers still retaining animal fat,” said Prof Ran Barkai of the Tel Aviv University’s Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, who is the senior author on the paper.
“It became clear from further analyses that butchering and carcass processing indeed took place at this site.”
By replicating the flint tools for a modern butchering experiment, and then comparing the replicas with their prehistoric counterparts, Prof Barkai and his colleagues determined that the biface was “prehistoric man’s sturdy ‘Swiss army knife,’ capable of cutting and breaking down bone, tough sinew.”
“The slimmer, more delicate scraper was used to separate fur and animal fat from muscle tissue,” Prof Barkai said.
“In the case of the massive elephant, for example, they would have needed to use both tools to manage such a challenging task. The knowledge of how to make these tools was precious, and must have been passed along from generation to generation, because these tools were reproduced the same way across great territorial expanses and over hundreds of thousands of years.”
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Solodenko N et al. 2015. Fat Residue and Use-Wear Found on Acheulian Biface and Scraper Associated with Butchered Elephant Remains at the Site of Revadim, Israel. PLoS ONE 10 (3): e0118572; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118572
