Around 120,000 years ago, early humans in the Levant hunted adult female aurochs individually rather than killing entire herds at once, based on patterns in animal bones and isotopic data from...
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
Hunters didn’t chase whole herds. Instead, they waited for single adult female aurochs to pass by, stabbed them with spears, let them go, and came back later to kill them after the wound healed. They did this again and again with different animals from different groups, avoiding young ones and big...
Most probable mechanism
Hunters waited for individual adult female aurochs to pass through known paths, struck them with spears, and returned later to retrieve them after the wound healed, avoiding large groups of animals that were harder to control.
Hunters identified and tracked individual adult female aurochs based on predictable movement patterns and social behavior, avoiding dense herds with juveniles.
A single projectile was launched at a targeted female, causing a non-fatal wound that allowed the animal to escape temporarily while remaining within a known range.
The wounded individual was revisited and killed in a subsequent encounter, leaving behind skeletal evidence of healed trauma and repeated human interaction.
Multiple independent hunting events occurred across different herds, each producing distinct isotopic signatures due to varied diets and geographic origins of the targeted animals.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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Archaic humans in the Middle Palaeolithic Levant conducted planned and selective intercepts of aurochs, but not mass hunting
Contradicting (0)
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Gold Standard Evidence Needed
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