What the heck?! Seriously, if you had a hammer, you'd probably want a rhino tooth.<br> <br> So, check this out. Archaeologists are diving deep into experimental archaeology, trying to figure out *how* ancient people, specifically Neanderthals, actually did things. Usually, it's stone tools or butchering deer, but these guys decided to test a wild theory: what if Neanderthals used rhino teeth as hammers?<br> <br> The study basically showed that when they tested bone-knapping on actual rhino teeth, the markings left on those teeth looked exactly like what you'd expect from hitting them with a stone tool—shallow pits and overlapping cracks from repeated blows. This is huge because it backs up the idea that Neanderthals were using these incredibly tough teeth as effective hand tools.<br> <br> The sheer amount of rhino teeth found at some Neanderthal sites in Europe and Asia is wild. And the fact that 74% of rhino remains at one Chinese site are teeth? That speaks volumes.<br> <br> It's one thing to *guess* ancient toolkits, but proving that rhino teeth were actually used as hammers gives us a much clearer picture of the toolkit Neanderthals actually had. It makes you wonder what other weird, durable materials they were messing around with.<br> <br> This is the kind of deep dive that makes history feel less like dusty textbooks and more like a high-stakes materials science experiment.<br> <br> Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/06/experiments-reveal-that-neanderthals-used-rhino-teeth-as-hammers/