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International

Around 125,000 years ago, Earth experienced an interglacial period with weather much like our climate today. Previous research at Neumark-Nord showed that Neanderthals hunted and butchered straight-tusked elephants in the region. According to a press release from Leiden University, there is also evidence of plant use in the area, though it’s rarely preserved. Additionally, previous studies found proof that inhabitants used fire to manage vegetation. Needless to say, Neanderthals have long been underestimated, and the new study does nothing to dissuade that notion.

Archeologists on the recent excavation found that Neanderthals intentionally selected the lakeside location to process the bones of at least 172 mammals including deer, horses, and aurochs (a now-extinct species of bovine). According to the study, inhabitants at the site not only broke open large mammal bones to extract the marrow, but they also ground the bones into thousands of fragments and heated them in water to extract calorie-rich bone grease. These findings place estimates of advanced resource collection thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

A new study shows evidence of Neanderthal “fat factories” dating back as far as 125,000 years ago.
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