“Hunting and killing these mammoths was part of Neanderthal subsistence activities at this site,” study co-author Will Robrocks told AFP.
“This is the first clear evidence of elephant hunting early in human evolution,” said Robrocks, professor of archeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
The study suggests that Neanderthals who lived in the area for 2,000 to 4,000 years were less mobile and formed social units “much larger than commonly hypothesized.”
“Neanderthals were not simple slaves of nature, the original hippies lived off the land,” Robrocks said.
“They were really shaping their environment, with fire … and having a big impact on even the largest animals that were in the world at the time.”