A new study suggests that the disappearance of massive herbivores in the Levant around 200,000 years ago prompted early humans to switch from heavy stone tools to lighter, more sophisticated ones. Researchers at Tel Aviv University analyzed archaeological sites and found this tool revolution coincided with a drop in large prey and a rise in smaller animals. The findings, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, propose that hunting smaller prey may have driven cognitive evolution.
Vlad Litov at Tel Aviv University and his colleagues examined artifacts from 47 Palaeolithic sites across the Levant. For over a million years, early humans relied on heavy-duty tools like axes and cleavers to hunt megaherbivores—heavy plant-eaters over 1,000 kilograms, such as extinct elephant and rhino relatives. Around 200,000 years ago, these tools vanished from the record as megaherbivores declined sharply, possibly due to overhunting, while smaller prey became more abundant and lightweight tools like blades proliferated. Litov noted that heavy tools persisted until about 50,000 years ago in regions like southern China where large prey remained available. “As megaherbivores declined, humans increasingly relied on smaller prey, which required different hunting strategies, more flexible planning, the use of lighter and more complex toolkits,” Litov said. “These challenges selected for enhanced cognitive abilities. The study challenges earlier views that cognitive advances drove the tool shift, instead arguing that adapting to scarcer large game spurred brain evolution in species like Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Ceri Shipton at University College London cautioned there was already sophisticated planning in the Middle Palaeolithic. Nicolas Teyssandier at the French National Centre for Scientific Research called it adaptation rather than a leap in intelligence.