Elephants may have played surprising role in early human survival, study suggests

Elephants are widely adored by many people today — but a recent study suggests early humans were butchering them for survival nearly 2 million years ago.

A group of international researchers found what they describe as “the earliest direct evidence of proboscidean butchery,” including a newly identified elephant butchery site, according to an article published in the spring in the journal eLife.

Modern elephants are the only living proboscideans today — a group that once included woolly mammoths and mastodons. The animal bones belonged to Elephas recki, an extinct elephant species.

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The research centers on Olduvai Gorge, a site in northern Tanzania’s Serengeti Plains known for major discoveries of early human fossils and tools.

At the site, excavators found stone tools alongside bones of ancient elephants — and the recent paper, written by archaeologists and paleoanthropologists, suggests the remains were likely deliberately butchered by early human ancestors.

The bones date back some 1.8 million years, during the early Pleistocene epoch.

Though researchers have observed evidence of humans hunting large megafauna in later periods, the discovery suggests that early humans processed elephant carcasses more systematically.

“The food surplus generated by the exploitation of some of these animals would have been a significant advantage.”

The study also says that early humans’ ability to butcher large animals “represents a unique evolutionary trajectory, with no direct modern analogue.”

“This shift in behavior is accompanied by larger, more complex occupation sites, signaling a profound ecological and technological transformation,” the paper states.

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“Rather than opportunistic scavenging, these findings suggest a strategic adaptation to megafaunal resources, with implications for early human subsistence and social organization.”

Meat from large animals like elephants would have provided a significant food source for early humans, the paper notes.

“The food surplus generated by the exploitation of some of these animals would have been a significant advantage for the survival and adaptation of the hominin groups,” the study adds.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the study’s lead researcher for comment.

Researchers continue to uncover new clues about human diets, spanning from ancient civilizations to the earliest humans.

This past December, archaeologists in Pompeii uncovered preserved food remains revealing what enslaved people ate before Mount Vesuvius erupted.

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More recently, researchers identified food DNA on the Shroud of Turin, suggesting that Jesus’ alleged burial shroud may have been contaminated over time.