Imagine a creature almost twice the size of a modern African elephant (weighing up to 6,000 kg). [13,000 lbs]). This is Elephas (Paleooxodon) Reki, a prehistoric giant that roamed the landscape of present-day Tanzania about 2 million years ago. Now, imagine a group of our ancestors standing over that carcass, slaughtering it and eating it.
For decades, archaeologists have debated when our hominin ancestors began eating megafauna, or animals weighing more than 1,000 kilograms. [2,200 pounds].
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It was Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. It is famous for containing some of the oldest and best-preserved remains of human ancestors. Dating back 1.8 million years, the discovery at the site known as EAK reveals that our ancestors were interacting with megafauna much earlier than previously thought (previous estimates at Olduvai put it around 1.5 million years ago) and in more sophisticated ways.
The discovery suggests that humans (possibly Homo erectus) may have lived in large social groups during this time, perhaps because their brains were more developed and they required a high-calorie diet rich in fatty acids.
“Smoking Gun”
One reason our ancient diet is so debated is that evidence of how much animal food early humans ate and how they obtained it is not easy to find.
In traditional archaeology, a “smoke gun” for butchering (dissecting a corpse) is a cut mark left in the bone by a stone tool. However, these marks are difficult to spot when working with large animals like elephants. An elephant’s skin is several centimeters thick, and its muscle mass is so vast that a butcher’s tools may never touch the bone. Additionally, millions of years of burial can weather the bone’s surface, erasing subtle marks. Also, if bones are deposited in abrasive deposits, trampling by other animals can leave marks on the bones, such as cuts.
At the EAK site, a partial skeleton of an Elephas Lekki individual was discovered in the same location as Oldowan stone tools. However, they could not rely on the remains of the bones to prove that this was not just a natural death or the work of a scavenger. Instead, we turned to a new kind of detective work: spatial tap phonology. This studies how stone artefacts and bone spatially occur in the same location. We also turned to more direct evidence: fossilized elephant bones broken while fresh (‘green breaks’).
carcass shape
To solve this 1.8-million-year-old mystery, we analyzed how the bones were scattered within the site. Every agent that comes into contact with a carcass, whether it’s a pride of lions, a pride of hyenas, or a group of humans, leaves a unique “spatial fingerprint.” Lions and hyenas tend to drag bones and scatter them in predictable patterns based on their weight and the amount of meat attached. Natural deaths, such as elephants dying in swamps, cause other, more localized skeletal ‘disintegration’.
Using advanced spatial statistics and later comparing EAK sites with several modern elephant carcasses studied in Botswana (unpublished), we found that the spatial organization of EAK is unique. The density of bone assemblages and stone tools among them was not consistent with a “random” or “scavenger-driven” model. Instead, they reflected concentrated high-intensity processing events. This spatial feature is consistent with a human slaughterhouse and was also recorded at the Olduvai site, which is 500,000 years old.
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This was confirmed by the presence of green broken long bones in several locations in the landscape where not only EAK but also other elephant and hippo carcasses were slaughtered. Currently, only humans can break the axis of an elephant’s long bone. Even spotted hyenas, which have extremely powerful jaws, can’t do that.
Evidence of this behavior can be detected on other sites as well. For example, at El Qerba (Algeria), bone fragments with cut marks from a large animal (probably a hippopotamus) dating back 1.78 million years have been recorded.
The repeated discovery of multiple elephant and hippopotamus carcasses slaughtered in different parts of the landscape suggests that humans were slaughtering the remains of large animals that were hunted or scavenged.
Why is an elephant’s diet important?
This discovery isn’t just about prehistoric menus. It’s about the evolution of the human brain and social structure. There is a long-standing theory in paleoanthropology called the “expensive tissue hypothesis.” This suggests that as our ancestors’ brains grew larger, they required a significant increase in high-quality calories, especially fat and protein. Large mammals like elephants are essentially giant “packages” of these calories. Processing even one elephant provides an unexpected amount of calories to sustain a herd for several weeks.
But slaughtering an elephant is a difficult task. It requires sharp stone tools and, most importantly, the cooperation of society. Our ancestors had to work together to protect carcasses from predators like saber-toothed cats and giant hyenas, while other ancestors worked to extract meat and bone marrow.
This suggests that even 1.8 million years ago, our ancestors already had a truly “human” level of social organization and environmental awareness.
There is another side to this discovery. Humans at the time, like modern carnivores, consumed animals whose size was related to the size of their own populations. A small pride of lions eats a wildebeest. Larger prides feed on buffalo and in some places even young elephants. Evidence that these early hominins exploited large animals is presented alongside evidence that they lived in much larger areas than previously, likely reflecting larger population sizes.
At that time, it is still not explained why early humans started living in large groups, but this shows that they certainly needed more food.
ecosystem changes
The EAK site also describes the environment. By analyzing tiny fossils of plants and microscopic animals found in the same soil layer, we reconstructed a landscape transitioning from a lush, wooded lake edge to a more open, grassy savannah. Our ancestors were already eating small prey. There is evidence that two million years ago they hunted small and medium-sized animals (such as gazelles and waterbucks). Shortly before that, they began using technology (stone tools) to circumvent biological limitations.
Evidence from Olduvai Gorge shows that our ancestors were incredibly adaptable and were able to thrive in changing climates by developing new behaviors.
When we look at the spatial arrangement of these ancient sites, we are not simply looking at the bones of extinct elephants. We are looking at the remains of a pivotal moment in human history. It was then that a small group of hominins saw the giants and saw not only a threat, but the key to their survival.
This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on April 13th at 12:49pm ET to change Hominid in Strapline to Hominid. Hominins are the group that includes humans and our closest relatives.
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