Mortality analysis of the Late Pleistocene bears from Grotta Lattaia, central Italy

A unique population of cave bears (Carnivora: Ursidae) from the Middle Pleistocene of Kents Cavern, England, based on dental morphometrics

“…The Kents Cavern cave-bear life table, with all life stages represented in their expected proportions, is consistent with the use of the cave as a hibernaculum (Argenti and Mazza 2006). Although our sample is limited to the Torquay Museum material and does not represent the total recovery of bear teeth from the cave, the low MNI is instructive and consistent with plots of spatial distribution (Mihai et al in press), which imply that the total number of bears represented was not high, and that the animals therefore were probably only using the cave for a relatively short period of time.…”

Extinctions of Late Ice Age Cave Bears as a Result of Climate/Habitat Change and Large Carnivore Lion/Hyena/Wolf Predation Stress in Europe

“…Sophie's Cave has yielded few more wolf remains of wolf cubs in the material from the late Late Pleistocene layers, but also those are still too few for bone statistics. As with the lions and hyenas in the cave, the presence of wolves at least also indicates predation on cave bears (Figures 13(c) and 14(b)), and hence no "natural mortalities" can be expected in any European cave bear populations, as already mentioned [72]-this has only been suggested without taking into account the possibility of predation by carnivores [70,71]. During the Pleistocene wolves only used caves for cubraising, as in the present day [53,56,58].…”

“…It was generally suggested before that only "natural mortalities" occurred in those cave bear populations which were found in caves [70,71]. First interpretations of carnivore impact on cave bear populations were discussed in a single European cave [72]. New research has demonstrated that cave bears indeed have been the main food source for these large Ice Age predators (lions, hyenas) in boreal forest environments [1][2][3], whereas newest nitrogen isotope analyses have additionally suggested lions to have fed at the end of the Late Pleistocene mainly on cave bear cubs at least [73].…”

Bears and humans, a Neanderthal tale. Reconstructing uncommon behaviors from zooarchaeological evidence in southern Europe

“…Sites across Italy have produced examples of alternating Neanderthal-large carnivore frequentations attested by handfuls of lithic artifacts in association with abundant bone remains, supposedly the result of natural deaths. This evidence can be characterized by the extreme conditions in which they are found, as in the case of Caverna Generosa, located at around 1,500m asl in the central Italian pre-Alps (Bona et al, 2007), and Grotta Lattaia, on Cetona Mount in southern Tuscany (Argenti and Mazza, 2006), the southern limit of the population range of the cave bear. At Grotta Lattaia, 107 Ursus spelaeus bones were found in association with Levallois tools dated to 48±4ky 14 C BP.…”