A new study has revealed another remarkable aspect of Neanderthal behavior: they not only consumed the animals they hunted but also utilized their remains as tools. An emerging conclusion, science is coming to.

Researchers from the University of Aberdeen and UNED Madrid investigated Neanderthal sites in Western Europe, particularly a curious accumulation of rhinoceros teeth found in Payre, France. This led to the question: why was there such a large deposit of these teeth?

As a recent study published in Human Evolution describes, the use of faunal tools by Neanderthals has intrigued researchers for some time. However, there has been a significant gap in taphonomic dental analysis related to this topic. The study aimed to explore the hypothesis that Paleolithic groups might have used rhinoceros teeth as tools.

For the first time, researchers conducted controlled archaeological experiments on rhinoceros teeth, marking the first in-depth investigation into their potential uses during the Middle Paleolithic in Western Europe. This study contributes to our understanding of Neanderthal subsistence strategies and material culture, according to study authors.

How Neanderthals used rhino teeth

Researchers left no stone unturned in their pursuit of answers.

Evidence across three locations: Payre, France, and two other sites in southwestern France and Southern China, indicated that rhinoceros teeth “may have been intentionally produced for secondary utilization for non-food purposes,” the study states.

At Payre, they found a layer comprising 91% isolated teeth, as Archaeology News reports. Why so many teeth?

For this study, archaeologists examined 12 Middle Paleolithic sites spread across Spain and France. They evaluated the markings on the teeth to rule out mastication, to determine which were removal scars, or perhaps, scratches and tears from use.

However, according to Archaeology Magazine, the two principal sites were Spain’s El Castillo site and France’s Pech-de-l’Azé II. Two hundred and two rhino teeth were found at El Castillo, as per Science News, and 25 of them showed signs of use that had never been attributed, scientifically.

Under the microscope, the teeth appeared to be marked by repeated contact with hard surfaces. So researchers pretended that they were Neanderthals, essentially, and shaped tools from modern teeth to discern whether the marks they produced at all matched what they found.

Neanderthals knew what they were doing

They used the teeth as hammers to sculpt stone tools, and as anvils for cutting vegetable fibers and leather. The researchers found that their tools reassembled the Neanderthal tools of 100,000 years ago. They even learned, or could remark on which teeth were best to use, such as larger teeth with flatter surfaces, so they ascertained how the Neanderthals selected teeth for certain jobs.

“I had never found teeth with these types of marks. At first, I was quite skeptical,” said Sanz-Royo, of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, in Science News.

As the experiment suggests, researchers gained a new understanding of their thought process, even replicating it as modern humans.  

Once again, the “stupid Neanderthal” narrative has been challenged because the study suggests that they exhibited sophisticated cognition around the selection and use of these tools. As Science News continued, “the full extent of Neanderthal cognitive abilities is a matter of heated debate.” Increasingly, researchers are finding that these so-called primitive humans possessed symbolic thought, which we once thought was reserved for us, modern humans.

“This study is important because it opens the possibility that, in addition to bones and antlers, rhinoceros teeth—which are a super-hard material—were also very useful,” said Sanz-Royo in Archaeology Magazine. 

Along with the appearance of rhinoceros teeth in the collective toolkit they were using, the study showed that they didn’t just eat the animals that they hunted, but sourced their tools from their remains, which is” a trait of modernity,” as Science News concludes. So these weren’t primitive humans, at all.