Archaeologists are super excited about this 500,000-year-old hand axe

These aren't your average prehistoric stone tools — they also have 500,000-year-old elephant residue on them.

Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University found "hand axes" and "scrapers" among elephant remains at a site in Revadim, Israel. The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, represent the first confirmed evidence of Paleolithic stone tools used on animal hides and carcasses. The tools bore animal residue and were found near butchered elephant fragments.

The find is crucial, because it could help historians better understand prehistoric cultures' use of stone tools. In the study, the researchers explained that prehistoric humans used stone tools to hunt animals and to remove meat from carcasses as they developed from plant-eaters to carnivores — and now, they finally have the evidence to prove it.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"There are three parts to this puzzle: the expansion of the human brain, the shift to meat consumption, and the ability to develop sophisticated technology to meet the new biological demands," Ran Barkai, a Tel Aviv University professor who led the analysis, said in a statement. "The invention of stone technology was a major breakthrough in human evolution."

Barkai added that prior to the Revadim discovery, the notion that prehistoric humans used stone tools to break down animal carcasses had "remained just a theory." Now, archaeologists and historians finally have confirmed evidence about the use of tools in prehistoric culture.