A 700,000-year-old elephant tooth reveals a lost world where early humans lived

A remarkably preserved elephant tooth dating back nearly 700,000 years revealed a surprisingly lush prehistoric world where giant elephants and early humans lived side by side. Discovered in northern Israel alongside ancient stone tools, the tooth belonged to a straight-tusked elephant, one of the largest land mammals of the Ice Age. A 700,000-year-old elephant tooth reveals a lost world where early humans lived.

Found in northern Israel, the fossil has helped researchers reconstruct a surprisingly lush prehistoric landscape filled with forests, rivers, wetlands, and abundant vegetation. This ancient environment supported enormous elephants and some of the region’s earliest human populations, revealing how access to water and natural resources may have helped our ancestors survive and move between continents. The discovery comes from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY-NBA), an archaeological site where early humans produced stone tools hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Elephant remains were unearthed alongside handaxes and cleavers made from basalt, a volcanic rock. These implements belong to the Acheulian tradition, one of the oldest and most widespread stone tool technologies in human history. The research, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, was led by Hannah Farrell (a PhD candidate at Haifa University).