If I had a hammer... it might actually be a rhino tooth

• 01Archaeologists suspected Neanderthals used rhino teeth as tools to make stone tools, and researchers demonstrated this was probable through experimental archaeology.
• 02At the 300,000-130,000-year-old cave site of Panxian Dadong in southern China, 74 percent of rhino remains are teeth rather than bones.
• 03At Payre, a rock shelter in southeast France, teeth make up 91 percent of the rhino fossils.
• 04Markings on ancient rhino teeth showed groupings of shallow pits and overlapping cracks consistent with being struck by bone hammers, and thin shallow scratches from stone tool edges.
• 05Researchers obtained 18 white rhino teeth from three French zoos for the experimental study.
• 06Expert knapper David Pleurdeau used the teeth to retouch stone flakes, as hammers to knap flint, to knap quartz, and as anvils for cutting leather and plant fibers.
• 07When comparing experimental teeth marks to fossils from Payre, El Castillo in Spain, and Peche-de-l'Aze II in France, researchers found striking similarities in overlapping fractures, indentations, and scratches.
• 08Marks consistent with tool use did not appear on rhinoceros teeth from paleontological sites with no signs of human presence.

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University of Aberdeen archaeologist Alicia Sanz-Royo and colleagues conducted experimental archaeology using white rhino teeth to test whether Neanderthals used them as tools. The researchers obtained 18 teeth from French zoos and used them to retouch stone flakes, as hammers, and as anvils, then compared the resulting marks to teeth found at Neanderthal archaeological sites in France and Spain. The experimental marks matched those on ancient teeth, supporting the conclusion that Neanderthals likely used rhino teeth as tools in their toolkits.