Study in Science Advances finds Neanderthals at Neumark-Nord 2, Germany crushed bones from 172+ large mammals to render bone grease 125,000 years ago.
Key Takeaways
Neanderthals boiled crushed mammal bones in water to extract calorie-dense bone grease, a technique previously attributed to much later human groups.
The Neumark-Nord 2 lakeside site functioned as a dedicated fat-rendering location, with bones transported from kill sites for centralized processing.
Scale matters: bone grease production only becomes efficient above a threshold volume, so the 172+ mammals reflect deliberate aggregation, not opportunism.
The same Neumark-Nord landscape shows spatially differentiated behaviors: deer butchery in one zone, elephant processing in another, grease rendering in a third.
Prior 2023 work at the same site documented Neanderthals hunting 13-ton straight-tusked elephants, reinforcing a pattern of complex, planned resource management.
Hacker News Comment Review
The single comment connects this finding to recent research on Neanderthal brain morphology, suggesting convergent evidence is building for near-modern Neanderthal cognition.
No broader technical or methodological debate has emerged yet.
Notable Comments
@irdc: links bone grease study to April 2026 Ars Technica coverage of Neanderthal brain research, framing both as a strengthening consensus on cognitive parity.
