Ancient remains from a cave in Serbia show that Neanderthals were hunting mountain goats 300,000 years ago, adding to evidence of their ability to adapt to different environments
By Christa Lesté-Lasserre
11 September 2025
Ibex can move nimbly across steep mountain slopes
Serge Goujon/Shutterstock
Nearly 300,000 years ago, Neanderthals had already figured out how to hunt mountain goats along vertical cliffs and process them in well-organised camps.
Known for ambushing large animals in Western Europe’s flat meadows and forests, it seems Neanderthals adapted to the hills of Eastern Europe by adding nimble ibex to their hunting regime. The early humans skinned and butchered the animals in a nearby cave before roasting their bones for marrow and grease, showing impressive skill and knowledge far earlier than expected, says Stefan Milošević at the University of Belgrade in Serbia.
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“The approach of hunting ibex is completely different, because it lives on a very rugged and steep, barren terrain,” he says. “We now see that early Neanderthals – who had barely differentiated themselves anthropologically as a species – were already exploiting ecological niches that no hominin had ever exploited before.”
Neanderthals evolved about 400,000 years ago, but most of what we know about them comes from sites in Western Europe that are younger than 150,000 years. So finding clues that fill in gaps in the Neanderthal timeline, habitat and culture is critical, says Marie-Hélène Moncel at France’s National Museum of Natural History in Paris, who wasn’t involved in the study.
In 2017, archaeologists found Neanderthal remains in an approximately 290,000-year-old layer of the Velika Balanica cave in Serbia, making them the oldest such remains found in Eastern Europe.