Bears of the Pleistocene

[brotherbear]

The Cave Bear Story by Bjorn Kurten - chapter 8 - The Substitute Cave Bear.
I still remember my surprise when, years ago, I started to study the British cave bears. I knew, of course, that brown bears and grizzly bears ( now regarded as variants of the same species, Ursus arctos ) had been reported from British caves, together with Ursus spelaeus. In 1846 Richard Owen stated, "With the Ursus spelaeus was associated another bear, more like the common European species, but larger than the present individuals of the Ursus arctos." In the continental bear caves, it is not uncommon to find an occasional specimen of brown bear among the great mass of cave bear bones. This was the situation I expected to find in the British caves, but it turned out to be completely different. 
Tornewton Cave, in South Devon, is an example of a bear cave excavated by modern methods; it was dug during many years by Antony J. Sutcliffe and yielded a long sequence od fossiliferous strata, ranging in age from the Saalian glaciation to the end of the Pleistocene and into modern times. In Saalian times the cave was inhabited by bears, which have left their remains in great numbers in the lower strata. With the onset of a milder climate regime in Eemian times, the cave became a hyena den, and the bear is found no more, except for a few scraps. Weichsel-glacial occupation was more sporadic, with moose and red deer during interstadial conditions and mainly reindeer during the intensely cold end of the glaciation. 
The Saalian bears of Tornewton Cave behaved much like the continental bears. There are many remains of cubs in the cave, and there is the telltale age grouping suggesting that the cave was used for hibernationin winter but rarely if at all during the summer. All is according to pattern, except for one thing. 
It is the wrong species. It is not the cave bear at all. Every bone and tooth in Tornewton Cave belongs to the brown bear, Ursus arctos.   Reply