ELEPHANT TOOTH REVEALS 700,000-YEAR-OLD LEVANT ECOSYSTEM

Researchers have reconstructed a 700,000-year-old landscape of woodlands, wetlands and waterways in northern Israel after analysing a fossilised elephant tooth found at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site, also known as the Daughters of Jacob Bridge, south of the Hula Valley. The tooth, along with tusk fragments, was uncovered alongside basalt hand axes and cleavers belonging to the Acheulian stone-tool tradition. A research team led by Hannah Farrell, a PhD candidate at the University of Haifa, identified the remains as belonging to Palaeoloxodon antiquus, the extinct straight-tusked elephant and one of the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene era. The study, which involved excavations led by Professor Gonen Sharon of Tel-Hai University, was published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

The team used CT scanning, 3D reconstruction, microscopic wear analysis, isotope geochemistry and pollen studies to treat the tooth as a biological archive of the surrounding environment. Their analysis pointed to a resource-rich ecosystem of woodlands, grasslands, marshes, rivers and shallow-water habitats that would have supported both large mammals and early human toolmakers. The site lies on the Levantine land bridge connecting Africa and Eurasia, a route used by early hominins, most likely Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis, long before modern humans and Neanderthals are known to have occupied the region.

According to Sharon, understanding how humans and animals responded to environmental change hundreds of thousands of years ago helps researchers understand the forces that shaped the human species. The researchers said the findings offer a rare insight into the shared environment of giant elephants and some of the region's earliest human populations. The study focuses specifically on evidence gathered from the GBY-NBA excavation area within the wider Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site in the Jordan Rift Valley.