Happy late #WorldElephantDay! 🐘
Did you know that archaeological finds offer fascinating insight into #Neanderthal #hunting organisation?
About 125,000 years ago large groups gathered in east-central Germany to butcher massive Straight-Tusked #Elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus):
https://www.science.org/content/article/neanderthals-lived-groups-big-enough-eat-giant-elephants
And boy, with shoulder height of up to 4.2 m and weighing about 11-15 t each, these #elephants have been quite some giant and quite commanding figures.
Here the reconstructed specimen at Pfännerhall #Geiseltal, based on the bones of individual E8 from the #NeumarkNord 1 site.
And if you thought "Wait, #Pfännerhall? Sounds somehow familiar!", then you're probably thinking of the #PfännerhallMammoth 🦣 which was also found in these same mines in the Geisel valley (and which today can be visited on display at @MuseumHalle):
And finally, just to get an idea of the really enormous size of these extinct #Elephants - and the impressive coordinated #Neanderthal hunting effort to bring down such a giant - a glimpse into the archaeologists notebook.
Human figures and modern African Elephant for scale. 😲
Loving the genus and species names.
Jens Notroff
Noel Kelly