Abstract
Animal resources have been part of hominin diets since around 2.5 million years ago, with sharp-edged stone tools facilitating access to carcasses. How exactly hominins acquired animal prey and how hunting strategies varied through time and space is far from clear. The oldest possible hunting weapons known from the archaeological record are 300,000 to 400,000-year-old sharpened wooden staves. These may have been used as throwing and/or close-range thrusting spears, but actual data on how such objects were used are lacking, as unambiguous lesions caused by such weapon-like objects are unknown for most of human prehistory. Here, we report perforations observed on two fallow deer skeletons from Neumark-Nord, Germany, retrieved during excavations of 120,000-year-old lake shore deposits with abundant traces of Neanderthal presence. Detailed studies of the perforations, including micro-computed tomography imaging and ballistic experiments, demonstrate that they resulted from the close-range use of thrusting spears. Such confrontational ways of hunting require close cooperation between participants, and over time may have shaped important aspects of hominin biology and behaviour.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
24,99 € / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
111,21 € per year
only 9,27 € per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ferraro, J. V. et al. Earliest archaeological evidence of persistent hominin carnivory. PLoS ONE 8, e62174 (2013).
Domínguez-Rodrigo, M. Stone Tools and Fossil Bones: Debates in the Archaeology of Human Origins (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2012).
Oakley, K. P., Andrews, P., Keeley, L. H. & Clark, J. D. A reappraisal of the clacton spearpoint. Proc. Prehist. Soc. 43, 13–30 (1977).
Thieme, H. Lower Palaeolithic hunting spears from Germany. Nature 385, 807–810 (1997).
Schoch, W. H., Bigga, G., Böhner, U., Richter, P. & Terberger, T. New insights on the wooden weapons from the Paleolithic site of Schöningen. J. Hum. Evol. 89, 214–225 (2015).
Churchill, S. Thin on the Ground: Neandertal Biology, Archeology and Ecology (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2013).
Churchill, S. E. Weapon technology, prey size selection, and hunting methods in modern hunter-gatherers: implications for hunting in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Archeol. Pap. AAA 4, 11–24 (1993).
Mania, D. et al. Neumark-Nord. Ein interglaziales Ökosystem des mittelpaläolithischen Menschen (ed. Meller, H.) (Veröffentlichungen des Landesamtes für Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt 62, Beier und Beran, Halle (Saale), 2010).
Gaudzinski-Windheuser, S. & Roebroeks, W. E. (eds) Multidisciplinary Studies of the Middle Palaeolithic Record from Neumark-Nord (Germany) Vol. I (Veröffentlichungen des Landesamtes für Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt 69, Beier und Beran, Halle (Saale), 2014).
Gaudzinski-Windheuser, S., Kindler, L., Pop, E., Roebroeks, W. & Smith, G. The Eemian interglacial lake-landscape at Neumark-Nord (Germany) and its potential for our knowledge of hominin subsistence strategies. Quat. Int. 331, 31–38 (2014).
Gaudzinski-Windheuser, S. in Elefantenreich. Eine Fossilwelt in Europa (ed. Meller, H.) 427–429 (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle (Saale), 2010).
Pop, E. et al. Fires at Neumark-Nord 2, Germany: an analysis of fire proxies from a last interglacial middle Palaeolithic basin site. J. Field Arch. 41, 1–15 (2016).
Roebroeks, W., Conard, N. J. & van Kolfschoten, T. Dense forests, cold steppes, and the Palaeolithic settlement of Northern Europe. Curr. Anthropol. 33, 551–586 (1992).
Palombo, M. R., Albayrak, E. & Marano, F. in Elefantenreich. Eine Fossilwelt in Europa (ed. Meller, H.) 219–247 (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle (Saale), 2010).
Pfeiffer, T. Sexualdimorphismus, Ontogenie und innerartliche Variabilität der pleistozänen Cervidenpopulation von Dama dama geiselana Pfeiffer 1998 und Cervus elaphus L. (Cervidae, Mammalia) aus Neumark-Nord (Sachsen-Anhalt, Deutschland). Berliner geowiss. Abh. E 30, 207–313 (1999).
Behrensmeyer, A. K. Taphonomic and ecologic information from bone weathering. Paleobiology 4, 150–162 (1978).
Mania, D. in Neumark-Nord. Ein interglaziales Ökosystem des mittelpaläolithischen Menschen (ed. Meller, H.) 381–408 (Veröffentlichungen des Landesamtes für Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt 62, Beier und Beran, Halle (Saale), 2010).
Fernández-Jalvo, Y. & Andrews, P. Atlas of Taphonomic Identifications. 1001+ Images of Fossil and Recent Mammal Bone Modification (Springer, Heidelberg, 2016).
Huchet, J. B. et al. Identification of dermestid pupal chambers on Southern Levant human bones: inference for reconstruction of Middle Bronze Age mortuary practices. J. Archaeol. Sci. 40, 3793–3803 (2013).
Noe-Nygaard, N. Mesolithic hunting in Denmark illustrated by bone injuries caused by human weapons. J. Archaeol. Sci. 1, 217–248 (1974).
Geist, V. New evidence of high frequency of antler wounding in cervids. Can. J. Zool. 64, 380–384 (1986).
Thieme, H. & Veil, S. Neue Untersuchungen zum eemzeitlichen Elefanten-Jagdplatz Lehringen, Ldkr. Verden. Die Kunde 36, 11–58 (1985).
Kneubuehl, B. (ed.) Wundballistik. Grundlagen und Anwendungen (Springer, Heidelberg, 2008).
Farnam, Y., Mohammadi, S. & Shekarchi, M. Experimental and numerical investigations of low velocity impact behavior of high-performance fiber-reinforced cement based composite. Int. J. Imp. Eng. 37, 220–229 (2010).
Roberts, M. B. & Parfitt, S. A. Boxgrove: A Middle Pleistocene Hominid Site at Eartham Quarry, Boxgrove, West Sussex (English Heritage, London, 1999).
Milo, R. G. Evidence for hominid predation at Klasies River Mouth, South Africa, and its implications for the behaviour of early modern humans. J. Archaeol. Sci. 25, 99–133 (1998).
Gaudzinski-Windheuser, S. in Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weaponry (eds Iovita, R. & Sano, K.) 77–100 (Springer, Heidelberg, 2016).
Nikolskiy, P. & Pitulko, V. Evidence from the Yana Palaeolithic site, Arctic Siberia, yields clues to the riddle of mammoth hunting. J. Archaeol. Sci. 40, 4189–4197 (2013).
Letourneux, C. & Pétillon, J.-M. Hunting lesions caused by osseous projectile points: experimental results and archaeological implications. J. Archaeol. Sci. 35, 2849–2862 (2008).
Villa, P. & Soriano, S. Hunting weapons of Neanderthals and early modern humans in South Africa: similarities and differences. J. Anthropol. Res. 66, 5–38 (2010).
Marean, C. W. An evolutionary anthropological perspective on modern human origins. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 44, 533–556 (2015).
Cattelain, P. & Pétillon, J.-M. Le «type 2a», plus ancien modèle de propulseur paléolithique: une nouvelle pièce dans le Magdalénien moyen d’Isturitz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France) et ses implications. PALEO 26, 17–32 (2015).
Trinkaus, E. Neandertals, early modern humans, and rodeo riders. J. Arch. Sci. 39, 3691–3693 (2012).
Klein, R. G. & Cruz-Uribe, K. The Analysis of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites (Chicago Univ. Press, Chicago, 1984).
Pfeiffer-Deml, T. in Neumark-Nord. Ein interglaziales Ökosystem des mittelpaläolithischen Menschen (ed. Meller, H.) 409–432 (Veröffentlichungen des Landesamtes für Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt 62, Beier und Beran, Halle (Saale), 2010).
Neunert, M., Bloesch, M. & Buchli, J. An open source, fiducial based, visual-inertial motion capture system. In Proc. 19th International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION) 1523–1530 (IEEE, 2016).
O’Driscoll, C. A. & Thompson, J. C. Experimental projectile impact marks on bone: implications for identifying the origins of projectile technology. J. Archaeol. Sci. 49, 398–413 (2014).
Kieser, D. C., Riddell, R., Kieser, J. A., Theis, J. & Swain, M. V. Bone micro-fracture observations from direct impact of slow velocity projectiles. JAMM 2, e15614 (2014).
Acknowledgements
Excavations at NN2 and studies of the Neumark-Nord assemblages were made possible through financial support from the Lausitzer Mitteldeutsche Braunkohlengesellschaft, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt (H. Meller), Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz, Leiden University and its Leids Universiteits Fonds, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Spinoza Grant 28-548 to W.R.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG Grant GA 683/7-1 to S.G.-W.) and Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. C.H., J.P. and J.B. have been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation through Professorship awards PP00P2_166163 and PP00P2_138920 to J.B. and ETH Zurich Research Grant ETH-36 14-1. For realizing the experiments, we are thankful for the support of Kung-Fu-School Baiyin Long Neuwied and all colleagues from the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
S.G.-W. conceived the study, analysed the cervid assemblage and discovered the lesions. S.G.-W., E.S.N. and R.I. designed the ballistic experiment. J.B., J.P. and C.H. designed the thrusting spear. S.G.-W., E.S.N., R.I., C.H. and M.S. performed the ballistic experiment. S.G.-W., E.S.N., J.P. and E.P. analysed the results. A.J. and F.E. performed the CT imaging. S.G.-W., W.R., E.P. and E.S.N. wrote the manuscript, with contributions from all other authors.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary methods, text and figures
Supplementary Model Files
Supplementary Model Files include a readme document and two polygon files comprising the model itself
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gaudzinski-Windheuser, S., Noack, E.S., Pop, E. et al. Evidence for close-range hunting by last interglacial Neanderthals. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 1087–1092 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0596-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0596-1
This article is cited by
-
First identification of a Neanderthal bone spear point through an interdisciplinary analysis at Abric Romaní (NE Iberian Peninsula)
Scientific Reports (2024)
-
The Tip Cross-sectional Area (TCSA) Method Strengthened and Constrained with Ethno-historical Material from Sub-Saharan Africa
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory (2024)
-
Identification and quantification of projectile impact marks on bone: new experimental insights using osseous points
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2024)
-
Reassessing the Interpretative Potential of Ethnographic Collections for Early Hunting Technologies
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory (2024)
-
Terminal ballistic analysis of impact fractures reveals the use of spearthrower 31 ky ago at Maisières-Canal, Belgium
Scientific Reports (2023)