Uncovering Europe’s History: University of Tübingen Reveals 300,000 Years of Shared and Conflict-Ridden Past Between Cave Bears and Humans
Humans began to skin cave bears 320,000 years ago, and with the appearance of Homo sapiens in Europe 45,000 years ago, hunting pressure on the animal intensified until Ursus spelaeus finally became extinct 24,000 years ago. With a shoulder height of 1.70 meters and a length of up to 3.5 meters, the cave bear was significantly larger and more massive than its relative, the brown bear, which has survived to this day.
The conflict-ridden relationship between cave bears and humans is now being documented for the first time over this long period in Germany by a team of researchers from the University of Tübingen, the University of Göttingen, the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment and the State Offices for Monument Preservation in Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony. The researchers can answer the long-disputed question of whether climate change or humans was the cause of the cave bear’s extinction. Their study shows that the hunt for cave bears is becoming increasingly intense, thus suggesting that humans are also the cause of the cave bear’s extinction. The study was published in the journal Quarternary Science Reviews .
“Humans made use of cave bears in many different ways: they ate their meat, made clothes from their fur, and entered into a symbolic relationship with the animal through jewelry made from their teeth or bear figurines made from ivory,” says Dr. Giulia Toniato, the coordinator of the research team. The researchers examined five sites in Germany (Schöningen, Einhornhöhle, Hohle Fels, Geißenklösterle, Schafstall) where cave bear bones have been found over a period of 300,000 to 28,000 years ago, and related them to existing studies on finds of bear bones in France, Belgium, Italy, Bulgaria and Poland. In Germany, one of the oldest pieces of evidence of the use of cave bears by humans comes from the Schöningen open-air station in Lower Saxony: Fine, long cut marks on paw bones, which are clearly different from bite marks from large predators, clearly indicate that humans took action to skin the bear.
The finds from Einhornhöhle, Geißenklösterle and Hohle Fels show that bear hunting was an occasional and established practice among Neanderthals. With the spread of modern humans in Europe, bears were used more intensively, as evidenced by the greater frequency and variety of modified bear remains from Schafstall II, Geißenklösterle and Hohle Fels. The cave bear retreated to hibernate in caves, which were also increasingly used by humans. This meant that the two species competed for the same habitat. Encounters became more frequent, as the researchers can prove by evaluating the sites, and humans hunted the cave bear more and more intensively, preferably during its hibernation. A broken flint projectile in the thoracic vertebrae of a bear from Hohle Fels is evidence of such an attack. The arrowhead was stuck in one of the first thoracic vertebrae, from which the researchers conclude that a shot to the side was intended. “In this situation, the hunters could only have found the bear in its sleeping position,” says Dr. Susanne Münzel from the Institute for Scientific Archaeology at the University of Tübingen.
The genetic diversity of cave bears began to decline 50,000 years ago, when Neanderthals were still roaming Europe. With the arrival of Homo sapiens, competition for the cave habitat increased, as did hunting pressure. The most recent finds of cave bear bones are 24,000 years old and were discovered in northern Italy. After that, the trail goes cold.
“Cave bears did not survive the period of maximum glaciation 20,000 years ago, but brown bears did. The reason is the different diets of the two bear species, because cave bears were exclusively vegetarian. They had to bridge the winter period with little vegetation by hibernating, during which the young bears were also born. Brown bears, on the other hand, were carnivores as long as they were contemporaries of cave bears. After the maximum glaciation and the extinction of the cave bears, they expanded their range to mainly plant-based food. This means that brown bears have adapted better to the changed environmental conditions,” says Münzel.