Fossilised remains of extinct big cats called cave lions display evidence of butchery, showing that Neanderthals had the skills to take on top predators
By Michael Marshall
12 October 2023
Illustration of Neanderthals butchering a freshly killed cave lion
Julio Lacerda/NLD
Neanderthals sometimes hunted now-extinct big cats called cave lions, which were larger than modern lions. The finding is some of the earliest evidence of ancient humans killing top predators, as opposed to plant-eaters like mammoths.
The evidence is twofold: a cave lion specimen revealing evidence of hunting and the remains of a cave lion pelt with its claws still attached.
Gabriele Russo at the University of Tübingen in Germany and his colleagues re-examined a 48,000-year-old cave lion skeleton found at Siegsdorf in Germany in the 1980s.
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Researchers already knew there were cut marks on the bones, suggesting the lion had been butchered after death. Russo has now found a puncture mark on one of its ribs, which seems to have been made by a wooden spear thrust into the animal’s chest. The injury had previously been misidentified as a wound from another carnivore.
Modern humans hadn’t yet established themselves in Europe 48,000 years ago. Instead, the continent was home to Neanderthals . It seems they were the hunters.
Russo’s team also uncovered a new cave lion specimen in the Einhornhöhle cave in Germany. In a layer of sediment dated to about 190,000 years ago, they found bones from the tips of the lion’s toes.