Elephants have long been known to be part of the Homo erectus
diet. But the significance of this specific food source, in
relation to both the survival of Homo erectus and the evolution
of modern humans, has never been understood until now. When Tel
Aviv University researchers Dr. Ran Barkai, Miki Ben-Dor, and
Prof. Avi Gopher of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient
Near Eastern Studies examined the published data describing
animal bones associated with Homo erectus at the Acheulian site
of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel, they found that elephant
bones made up only two to three percent the total. But these low
numbers are misleading, they say. While the six-ton animal may
have only been represented by a tiny percentage of bones at the
site, it actually provided as much as 60 percent of animal-
sourced calories. The elephant, a huge package of food that is
easy to hunt, disappeared from the Middle East 400,000 years ago
an event that must have imposed considerable nutritional stress
on Homo erectus. Work