A new paper published recently in PLOS ONE has uncovered evidence that early humans who inhabited the region near present-day Rome butchered a giant elephant around 404,000 years ago, ate its meat as food, and used its bones as tools. The discovery, at the Casal Lumbroso site in northwestern Rome, is one of the most complete views yet of the lives of hominins who inhabited Europe during a climatically warm period of the Middle Pleistocene.
Scientists at Rome’s Sapienza University uncovered over 300 skeletal fragments of the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) and more than 500 stone tools, mainly made of flint. Layers of volcanic ash above and below the remains gave scientists rare accuracy in dating the site to approximately 404,000 years ago, during an interglacial period between two ice ages.
The sediments at the site and fossil plants indicate it was once a wooded, humid environment on the Tiber River delta, a region teeming with life. In addition to bones from elephants, there were bones from rhinoceroses, deer, bison, canids, small mammals, turtles, amphibians, and birds, indicating an active prehistoric ecosystem.
Detailed examination indicates that the carcass of the elephant was processed shortly after death. There are numerous fresh fractures and impact marks on many bones that testify to intentional blows applied to break them open for marrow extraction. Interestingly, few bones bear cut marks—presumably because the butchers worked with small flint tools, most of which were shorter than 30 millimeters and suitable for cutting soft tissue but not for heavy work. The limited availability of larger stones in the area could have forced early humans to use small tools and to repurpose elephant bones themselves into large tools.
Some of the bone fragments show clear evidence of intentional shaping and utilization, confirming that these remains were reused as tools. This combination of small stone tools and bone technology demonstrates adaptability and resourcefulness among these ancient humans, who made full use of their environment’s limited resources.
Researchers estimate that the elephant probably perished naturally—possibly trapped in mud or water—before humans exploited it. Nevertheless, they do not entirely rule out the possibility that the animal was intentionally driven into a vulnerable position. The coordinated effort needed to process such a massive carcass demonstrates social cooperation and shared knowledge among the toolmakers.
Modern humans had not yet evolved, and Neanderthals would not appear for many thousands of years. The likely tool users at Casal Lumbroso were Homo heidelbergensis or Homo erectus, both known from European contexts of this age. The fact that they were able to exploit a resource as large as an elephant indicates a high degree of knowledge of food processing and toolmaking—considerably higher than was previously imagined for humans of this period.
Casal Lumbroso is included in the list of significant Middle Pleistocene sites in central Italy, such as Castel di Guido and La Polledrara di Cecanibbio, where elephant remains and tools have also been documented. All these discoveries reaffirm the importance of the region in uncovering early human behavior throughout warm climatic phases, when early humans and megafauna flourished across the Italian peninsula.
By examining how ancient hominins butchered, modified, and used elephant bones, researchers are reconstructing an ancient world—one in which early Europeans relied on ingenuity and cooperation to survive in a changing landscape.
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