In the cool stone chambers of Scladina Cave, deep in Belgium’s Meuse Valley, archaeologists have unearthed an artifact that impressed even the most seasoned anthropologists. It’s not gold or jewelry, nor the remains of a forgotten child, though these have been found here before. This time, it’s a broken bone — the tibia of a cave lion. But it’s what Neanderthals did with it that’s turning heads.
They turned it into a tool. And not just any tool.
They made a multitool.
The Lion in the Bones
Researchers from Belgium’s University of Ghent and international collaborators revealed the earliest known example of a multifunctional tool made from the bones of a cave lion (Panthera spelaea), an extinct Ice Age predator that once prowled Eurasia.
The find — dated to about 130,000 years ago — is not only the first evidence that Neanderthals repurposed lion bones into tools, but it also sheds new light on how they understood materials, planned tool use, and navigated their relationships with dangerous animals.
“This discovery at Scladina of bone retouchers crafted from cave lion remains represents an extraordinary and unparalleled finding within the Paleolithic archaeological record,” the researchers write.
Four fragments of bone, all recovered from the same sedimentary layer known as Unit 5, were refitted to reveal they came from a single left tibia. This bone, from a single adult cave lion, had been bifacially shaped, used, broken, and repurposed. It would be used first as a chisel-like implement, then as tools known as “retouchers,” used to sharpen or refine the edges of flint tools.
A Prehistoric Swiss Army Knife
A Swiss Army knife is convenient, versatile, and clever in its design. That’s not far from what Neanderthals had in mind.
One end of the tibia was carefully beveled, smoothed, and polished. These are signs that it had been deliberately shaped into a functional edge. Use-wear analysis under high magnification revealed polish consistent with scraping or chiseling, possibly on bone or wood.
But the story doesn’t end there. After the tool’s initial use, the Neanderthals fractured the bone intentionally and used its pieces for retouching flint tools. This process — called a “chaîne opératoire,” or operational sequence — mirrored that used on other bone tools at the site, including those made from bear bones. That consistency implies these weren’t one-off improvisations.
“The intentional transformation of lion bones into functional tools highlights Neanderthals’ cognitive skills, adaptability, and capacity for resource utilization beyond their immediate survival needs,” the study explains.
Why a Lion?
It’s tempting to imagine Neanderthals hunting cave lions out of fear, pride, or some symbolic ritual. But there’s no way we can tell either way and the researchers urge caution. The evidence so far points to simple pragmatism.
Bone tools from Scladina Cave were made from many species — cave bears, reindeer, horses, and even woolly rhinoceroses — but the selection process appears based less on species and more on bone size, shape, and structural integrity. In other words, Neanderthals chose bones that worked.
“The selection process reflects deliberate choices rooted in practical concerns rather than species-specific preferences, highlighting a sophisticated understanding of material properties and tool design,” the authors write.
Still, the use of a cave lion’s limb is extraordinary. Lions were not just fellow predators, they were apex competitors. And across Paleolithic sites, evidence of humans hunting or butchering lions is extremely scarce.
While they can’t confirm whether the lion was hunted, scavenged, or confronted in self-defense, the bones showed no signs of weathering or carnivore damage. That suggests the carcass was processed soon after death, perhaps even brought into the cave by the Neanderthals themselves.
Echoes of the Past
This find joins a short but growing list of evidence that Neanderthals interacted with — and sometimes killed — large carnivores. A 2023 study from Germany revealed that Neanderthals skinned a lion, possibly using its pelt. Other rare cases hint at lion butchering as early as 300,000 years ago, though those instances often involve earlier hominins like Homo heidelbergensis.
Yet the Scladina multitool is the first known lion bone turned into a tool. It means Neanderthals not only handled lions, but also exploited everything they could. They probably ate lion meat, wore its pelt, and even used its bones for practical purposes as a raw material.
Moreover, it expands our view of what Neanderthals were capable of.
At Scladina, archaeologists have previously uncovered a rich stratigraphic sequence, flint tools, and the remarkably preserved remains of a Neanderthal child. The new bone tool find is another stroke on the growing portrait of Neanderthals not as lumbering brutes, but as clever, adaptive humans.
And there’s a broader message embedded in the polish and fractures of that ancient tibia. It’s a reminder of what archaeology can still uncover, even from a single bone. And it’s a call to reassess how we think about our extinct relatives.
To this day, many people imagine Neanderthals as dim-witted or inferior. But discoveries like this challenge that stereotype.
“The artifact testifies to a technological behavior based on forward planning, raw material knowledge, and functional adaptation,” the study concludes.
The findings appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.
