🦣 An unexpected hammer, made of elephant bone, used 500,000 years ago in England

Half a million years ago, our ancestors were already crafting tools with astonishing precision. But how did they go about maintaining their sharp edges? An unexpected discovery in southern England offers a glimpse into their skills.

At the Boxgrove archaeological site in England, researchers have indeed identified a hammer made from an elephant bone. Dated to approximately 500,000 years old, this object represents the oldest elephant bone tool ever uncovered in Europe. Its role was to retouch flint into bifaces, tools essential for hunting and daily activities.


Triangular in shape and measuring nearly four inches (eleven centimeters) long, the artifact bears marks on its surface demonstrating intentional shaping. The bone most likely comes from an elephant or mammoth, animals uncommon in that region at the time, which shows the rarity of the raw material selected.

To determine its function, the team used 3D scanning and electron microscopy. These examinations revealed typical notches and impacts, confirming the use of the bone as a hammer. The presence of small embedded flint flakes within these marks indicates it regularly struck stone during retouching operations.

The use of elephant bone is not accidental: this material, denser and more robust than other bones, allowed for finer control during the shaping of stone tools. This suggests that these prehistoric humans, perhaps Neanderthals or Homo heidelbergensis, had sophisticated methods for making the best use of the resources available to them.


Published in Science Advances, this discovery shows that these populations were capable of planning and using rare materials. Whether the animal was hunted or scavenged, the tool attests to abstract thinking and ingenious adaptation to their environment, long before the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe.