Humans systematically hunted beavers 400,000 years ago
Published: Wednesday, Nov 29th 2023, 15:10
Retour au fil d'actualité
Around 400,000 years ago, humans systematically hunted and ate beavers. Findings in eastern Germany show that early humans had a more varied diet than previously known, as Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany) reported on Wednesday.
"Up until around 50,000 years ago, the conventional wisdom was that humans in Europe fed mainly on large game, and that this was an important difference to the flexible dietary strategies of modern humans," explained Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser from the University of Mainz. "We have now been able to clearly show that the food spectrum was much broader much earlier."
According to the researchers, the remains of beavers found in Bilzingsleben in Thuringia are the first evidence that early humans also hunted young adult - and therefore inexperienced but fat-rich - beavers.
The scientists also identified cut marks from stone tools on the approximately 400,000-year-old bones of at least 94 beavers, which indicate that the carcasses were used intensively. The study was published in the journal "Scientific Reports".
Successful resettlement
The beaver was widespread throughout Europe, but was completely wiped out mainly because of its fur and beaver venom, a secretion used to mark territories that was long considered a miracle cure. According to the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), the last beaver in Switzerland was killed at the beginning of the 19th century.
However, beavers have been successfully reintroduced to Switzerland since the 1950s. According to FOEN figures, 4,900 beavers were living in this country again in 2022. Thanks to this development, the beaver has no longer been classified as endangered on the Red List of Mammals since 2022.
©Keystone/SDA
French 
English 
German 
Spanish 
Arabic