Elephant molar from a site south of the Hula Valley records a few years of wetland and oak woodland 700,000 years ago

The isotope result and the pollen result answer different questions. One speaks to how wet the elephant's food was; the other names what grew. The team worked from molars and tusk fragments ^[1], and Discover's account names four lines of evidence in all, with CT scanning and microscopic wear analysis the other two ^[17]. Crediting the isotopes alone with the woodland-and-wetland picture overstates what they show.

Farrell told Discover that finding a molar with its structure so well preserved was exciting in itself ^[13]. "With it, we were able to establish a rare, detailed look at the ecosystem over a span of a few years of this elephant's life 700,000 years ago," Farrell said ^[7]. Regional models show the Levant swinging between temperate and arid periods during the Pleistocene, and those swings both helped and hindered hominins moving out of Africa ^[9]. The thing this doesn't tell you is whether the molar's few years were typical for the valley or a wet phase between dry ones.

Farrell's summary reaches past the site. "Our findings indicate that during the Middle Pleistocene (about 700,000 years ago), the Levantine Corridor had a humid, stable Mediterranean climate and that the landscape was a mosaic of wetlands and relatively open oak woodlands, with grasses and riparian vegetation," she said ^[8].

Discover's account of the paper is narrower on travelers. The researchers, writing in Quaternary Science Reviews, said the environment would have provided refuge for animals and humans traversing a corridor they describe as the only thoroughfare between Africa and Eurasia ^[2]. We think that narrower wording is the one the data fit. The researchers say the water and vegetation likely gave humans, straight-tusked elephants and other species a reliable supply of water and food ^[14].

The researchers also describe P. antiquus as "shapers of local ecosystems" and "dominant ecosystem engineers" that felled trees and stripped bark ^[10]. For the hominins, they say, the animal would have helped keep waterways open by treading across reed beds, enriched vegetation with its dung, and been a source of food ^[11].