Rosa Rubicondior: Refuting Creationism - Hominins Hunted Elephants in Italy

Butchering the carcass with small flint blades

AI-generated (ChatGPT 5)

Early humans butchered elephants using small tools and made big tools from their bones | EurekAlert!

A recent archaeological finding, by Beniamino Mecozzi of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy and colleagues, at the site of Casal Lumbroso in northwest Rome, has once again refuted the Bible narrative by extending the known depth of human prehistory far beyond the limits imposed by biblical literalism.

In sediments dated to some 400,000 years before creationism’s mythical 'Creation Week', the research team has uncovered evidence that early humans were butchering elephants with small stone tools and then fashioning large implements from the animals’ bones. These traces of planning, adaptation, and technological innovation demonstrate that human ingenuity was already well advanced hundreds of millennia before the supposed creation of Adam.

More interestingly from a scientific perspective is not the incidental refutation of ancient creation myths, which happens with almost every archaeological and palaeontological discovery, but the fact that these hominins predate the successful Homo sapiens migration out of African and into Eurasia by tens of thousands of years and pre-date even the earliest evidence of Neanderthals in western Eurasia. Such discoveries highlight the sheer scale of time over which our lineage evolved—an evolutionary saga measured not in millennia but in hundreds of thousands of years. The people who left these marks were not modern humans, but archaic members of the genus Homo, close relatives or ancestors of the Neanderthals. Their world was already ancient when the earliest chapters of Genesis were imagined.

Who were these Middle Pleistocene hominins - Neanderthals? The short answer is: you cannot automatically assume they were Neanderthals — there is uncertainty, and the attribution depends on the date, location, and morphological/evolutionary evidence. But it is a possibility. Here's a breakdown of the issues:

What we do know from the study

The article (Mecozzi et al. 2025) describes an elephant butchery site in central Italy, dated to about 404,000 years ago (Middle Pleistocene). [1.1]
The tools associated are mostly small stone implements (< 30 mm), likely used for soft tissue removal, and later elephant bones themselves were modified into larger tools. [1.1]
The claim is that this pattern (butchering with small stone tools, then making larger bone tools) occurs at multiple central Italian sites in warm intervals of the Middle Pleistocene. [1.1]

So we have a firm temporal and geographic context.

What the human species or lineage might have been
When considering whether they were “Neanderthals,” one must keep in mind the timeline of human evolution in Europe.

Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) proper are generally thought to emerge later, especially in the Late Pleistocene. The “classic” Neanderthal morphology is more pronounced after ~200,000 years ago (though their precursors extend earlier).
During the Middle Pleistocene, Europe was populated by archaic humans / hominins whose taxonomy is debated: Homo heidelbergensis, “pre-Neanderthal” populations, or transitional forms.
In Italy specifically, there is a Middle Pleistocene fossil known as Ceprano Man (skull cap) from ~430,000–385,000 years ago. Whether Ceprano is classified as Homo heidelbergensis or an early Neanderthal-relative is debated, but it is often treated as an archaic human form rather than fully Neanderthal. [2.1]
Some hominin remains in Europe from the mid Middle Pleistocene are considered “pre-Neanderthals” or part of the Neanderthal lineage before full Neanderthal morphology had evolved (for example at Sima de los Huesos in Spain) [3.1]

Thus, in 404,000 years ago Italy, it is more likely that the people were archaic European hominins ancestral or closely related to Neanderthals, rather than “full” Neanderthals as we often imagine them.

Bottom line: Is it reasonable to assume “Neanderthals”?

It is not wrong to suggest a connection with Neanderthal ancestry or the Neanderthal lineage, but it's an overstatement to label them straightforwardly as Neanderthals without caveats. A more cautious phrasing would be:

These butcherers may have belonged to an archaic European human lineage closely related to or ancestral to Neanderthals, rather than necessarily being “true” Neanderthals themselves.

The researchers have reported their findings, open access in

PLOS ONE, and explain it is a press release through EurekAlert.

Early humans butchered elephants using small tools and made big tools from their bones
Multiple sites in central Italy show consistent strategy during warm parts of the Middle Pleistocene
During warmer periods of the Middle Pleistocene, ancient humans in Italy were in the habit of butchering elephants for meat and raw materials, according to a study published October 8, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Beniamino Mecozzi of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy and colleagues.

Ancient humans used animal carcasses for meat and other resources, but direct evidence of butchery is sparse and can be difficult to identify in the archaeological record. In this study, Mecozzi and colleagues describe the remains of an elephant carcass at the site of Casal Lumbroso in northwest Rome. Comparative study of ash deposits at the site reveals that these remains date to 404,000 years ago, during a particularly warm period of the Middle Pleistocene Epoch.

The researchers identified over 300 skeletal remains from a single straight-tusked elephant, Palaeoloxodon, alongside more than 500 stone tools. Several of the bones exhibit fresh fractures made shortly after the animal’s death, each associated with impact marks where blunt force was used to create the fractures. A lack of apparent cut marks on the bones is consistent with small tools having been used to butcher soft tissues, and accordingly most of the stone tools at the site are less than 30mm in size, possibly due to low availability of large stones. Several elephant bones were physically modified to be used as larger tools.

The features of this site are consistent with several other sites in central Italy that exhibit butchered elephant remains alongside modified bones and small stone tools. This pattern implies a consistent strategy used by ancient hominins during periods of mild climate conditions in the Middle Pleistocene, and further suggests that central Italy is a valuable region for research into the subsistence strategies of early European humans.

The authors add: "Our study shows how, 400,000 years ago in the area of Rome, human groups were able to exploit an extraordinary resource like the elephant—not only for food, but also by transforming its bones into tools."

"Reconstructing these events means bringing to life ancient and vanished scenarios, revealing a world where humans, animals, and ecosystems interacted in ways that still surprise and fascinate us today.”

Publication:
Mecozzi B, Fiore I, Giaccio B, Giustini F, Mercurio S, Monaco L, et al. (2025)
From meat to raw material: the Middle Pleistocene elephant butchery site of Casal Lumbroso (Rome, central Italy).
PLoS One 20(10): e0328840. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0328840

Abstract
The site of Casal Lumbroso is located in the north-west sector of Rome (central Italy). Stratigraphic and geochemical data presented here evidence that the archaeological and paleontological horizon lies at the top of the Tiber River aggradational succession related to the MIS 11c sea level highstand (dated at ca. 404 ka), and that the paleohabitat was characterised by wooded environments and humid climatic conditions. Paleontological analysis allows attributing most of the remains to an adult individual of straight-tusked elephant, Palaeoloxodon antiquus, with sporadic elements referred to Stephanorhinus sp., Bovinae, Cervinae, Cervus elaphus, Dama sp., Canis sp., Oryctolagus sp., Talpa sp., Testudines, and Amphibia. Two bird remains are referred to Anatidae and Strigiformes. A rich lithic assemblage, mainly made of flint, was also found associated with the fossil remains. Taphonomic, technological and functional analyses indicate that the P. antiquus carcass was probably exploited by humans not only as a food source, but also as a source of raw material, as documented by the presence of several intentionally fractured elephant bone fragments, some of them also with flake removals, with localized use wear traces. The findings at Casal Lumbroso highlight once again the importance of the territory around the city of Rome for Middle Pleistocene studies. The northwestern sector of the city, where other important sites such as Castel di Guido and La Polledrara di Cecanibbio have also been discovered, is therefore crucial for understanding human strategies for exploiting elephant carcasses.

Introduction
The elephant-hominin interaction is documented in less than twenty localities across Europe, where fossils of Palaeoloxodon antiquus display clear evidence of human exploitation [1–3]. One of the main pieces of evidence for such interaction, often referred to as elephant butchery sites, is the exploitation of elephant carcasses as a source of meat, fat, and marrow, with bones fractured and showing cut marks [4–7]. However, the occurrence of cut marks on elephant bones is quite rare, and their presence or absence may depend on various factors involved in the butchery process [8–10]. Moreover, cut marks on elephant remains may be underrepresented because their thick and massive bones make it easier for butchery activities to be carried out without leaving visible traces. Proboscideans may indeed guarantee a significant amount of fat and meat, thereby serving as an important source of energy for human groups [11–14]. At many of these sites, elephant bones have also been used as raw material to produce various types of artifacts, especially when the local lithic raw material is not suitable for large tool production [4–7,15,16]. In the first place, the production of large tools would have been necessary, particularly due to their potential role in butchery, which would have required early humans to produce additional large tools during or after the butchery process [4–7,15,16]. Renowned European examples of elephant butchery sites are Marathousa 1 in Greece [4], Schöningen and Bilzingsleben in Germany [17–18], Áridos 1,2 in Spain [19], and Castel di Guido and La Polledrara di Cecanibbio in Italy [3,12].

However, methodological approaches introduced in recent decades have highlighted the need to consider multiple factors when interpreting an accumulation of lithic tools and elephant carcasses as a butchery event, rather than relying solely on the mere spatial association [2,8].

In south-western Eurasia, the palaeo-delta environment of the Tiber River, in central Italy, stands out as one of the Middle Pleistocene areas richest in large mammal remains and Lower Palaeolithic archaeological sites (see Supplementary Information), thus an ideal setting for investigating the interaction between hominins and other large mammals, including elephants, during the major climatic and environmental change occurring during the Early-Middle Pleistocene transition (EMPT), and especially after the Mid-Brunhes Event (MBE, ca. 424 ka; Marine Isotope Stages [MIS] 12–11 transition). The discovery of the archaeological and palaeontological horizon at Casal Lumbroso confirms the extraordinary importance of the territory around Rome, the so-called “Campagna Romana” for examining the impact of climatic changes on terrestrial ecosystems and human occupation during the Middle Pleistocene. At Casal Lumbroso, faunal remains include mainly a single carcass of Palaeoloxodon antiquus with relatively few other specimens belonging to other taxa, discovered alongside lithic artifacts and bone tools crafted from elephant bones. Casal Lumbroso thus appears particularly relevant for the study of human-elephant interactions, since in the same area the almost coeval sites of Castel di Guido and La Polledrara di Cecanibbio [3,12] have already been identified and studied. In this paper we present new preliminary data on the elephant butchery site of Casal Lumbroso using evidence from extensive archaeological and palaeontological excavation with the aim of improving our knowledge about terrestrial ecosystems and subsistence strategies of pre-Neanderthal populations. Based on stratigraphic and tephrochronological data, Casal Lumbroso is attributed to the MIS 11c, acknowledged as the longest and among the warmest [20-22], as well as unusual, interglacial recorded in the last 800 ka [23].

Mecozzi B, Fiore I, Giaccio B, Giustini F, Mercurio S, Monaco L, et al. (2025)
From meat to raw material: the Middle Pleistocene elephant butchery site of Casal Lumbroso (Rome, central Italy).
PLoS One 20(10): e0328840. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0328840

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by PLoS. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

These remains in central Italy are a reminder that our species is not a sudden, miraculous creation but part of a long, branching evolutionary story. Four hundred thousand years ago, long before the first line of Genesis was ever penned, archaic humans were already thriving in Europe. They were hunting or scavenging elephants, planning their butchery, and innovatively repurposing bones as tools. Their world was one of survival, adaptation, and ingenuity — a world built through countless generations of evolution, not conjured into existence in an instant.

The biblical creation myth, by contrast, compresses all of human history into a few thousand years and places a single pair of fully formed humans at its beginning. This neat, short narrative may be comforting to some, but it is entirely at odds with the physical evidence left in the ground. Archaeology, palaeontology, and genetics converge to reveal a vastly deeper and richer past — one that can be measured in hundreds of millennia, not mere millennia.

Finds like this elephant butchery site do more than just push back timelines; they illuminate the abilities and adaptability of our distant relatives. The people who lived then were neither primitive brutes nor divine creations but intelligent, resourceful beings shaped by the same evolutionary processes that produced us. Their legacy is written not in scripture, but in stone tools, butchered bones, and the very landscape they once walked.

Advertisement

What Makes You So Special? From The Big Bang To You

How did you come to be here, now? This books takes you from the Big Bang to the evolution of modern humans and the history of human cultures, showing that science is an adventure of discovery and a source of limitless wonder, giving us richer and more rewarding appreciation of the phenomenal privilege of merely being alive and able to begin to understand it all.

Ten Reasons To Lose Faith: And Why You Are Better Off Without It

This book explains why faith is a fallacy and serves no useful purpose other than providing an excuse for pretending to know things that are unknown. It also explains how losing faith liberates former sufferers from fear, delusion and the control of others, freeing them to see the world in a different light, to recognise the injustices that religions cause and to accept people for who they are, not which group they happened to be born in. A society based on atheist, Humanist principles would be a less divided, more inclusive, more peaceful society and one more appreciative of the one opportunity that life gives us to enjoy and wonder at the world we live in.

Amazon