The Extinction Of Cave Bear

is a speck of powder weighing less than one one-hundredth of an ounce. The method may be harsh, but the yield is precious - the biography of a cave bear as told through its chemical components. Bocherens is at the forefront of research on the bear, a European species that died out 25,000 years ago. People have been excavating cave bear remains for hundreds of years - in the Middle Ages, the massive skulls were attributed to dragons - but the past decade has seen a burst of discoveries about how the bears lived and why they became extinct. An abundance of bones has been found from Spain to Romania in caves where the animals once hibernated. "Caves are good places to preserve bones, and cave bears had the good sense to die there," Bocherens says. Along with mammoths, lions and woolly rhinos, cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) were once among Europe's most impressive creatures. Males weighed up to 1,500 pounds, 50 per cent more than the largest modern grizzly bears. Cave bears had wider heads than today's bears, and powerful shoulders and forelimbs. But the relationship between humans and cave bears has been mysterious. Were humans prey for the bears, or predators? Were bears the object of worship or fear? Initially cave bears…