Post by Melanie on Mar 16, 2006 10:09:28 GMT
Cave bears traded spaces with humans
Fans of Clan of the Cave Bear, may recall Jean Auel's novel concluding that humans and their Neanderthal cousins just couldn't share the same cave. But what about humans and the cave bears from the book's title?
A look at France's Chauvet Cave, famously adorned with millennia of cave paintings marked by long, deep bear scratches, suggests cave-sharing between people and bears goes back a long way.
Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) died out in Europe within the last 15,000 years. But, "the question of a special relationship between cave bears and humans, such as hunting or worshipping, is still a debated issue," notes a study in the current Journal of Human Evolution. Basically the debate is over whether people revered the bears or ate them.
Led by Herve' Bocherens. of France's Universite Montpellier, the study team took a look at that special relationship by dating the cave bear bones littering the cave, located in southern France. Cave art there dates to 32,000 years ago, well before the bears became extinct.
In all, the team reports only 18 cave bear bones, a mixture of ribs, legs, hips and skulls, yielded enough soft tissue, or collagen, to accurately perform radiocarbon dating. (Radiocarbon dating measures the ratio of a form of radioactive carbon against a stable variety found in tissues. Since creatures stop breathing and accumulating carbon dioxide when they die, the amount of radioactive decay measured by that ratio serves as a "clock" for estimating the age of the creature.) The team also looked at nitrogen isotopes in the collagen.
One of the skulls used in the study was located in the "Salle du Crane" or "Cave of Skulls" chamber. It is the one famously found perched on a rock, where it may have served as target practice for the mammoth ivory-pointed spear-tips found nearby.
Cave bear bones litter Europe's caves and the species is thought to have lived on the continent as far back as 300,000 years ago. They were larger than grizzly bears, but were vegetarians, as shown by their teeth, broad grinding molars. Still you likely wouldn't want to antagonize one.
In Chauvet Cave, the cave bear bones mostly dated from about 28,000 to 30,000 years ago, including the target practice noggin, which dated to around 30,430 years old. One bear's jaw dated to more than 37,000 years ago. The nitrogen readings indicate that bear lived during a cold period in Europe.
"Both species used the cave," just not at the same time, the study concludes. The find demonstrates that people and bears traded ownership there, perhaps centuries apart, from 32,000 to 28,000 years ago. A hearth dated in the cave appears to be from 26,000 years ago as well. Although the spear points and target practice skulls tell a grim story, the researchers didn't report any evidence for conflict, or other interaction, between the humans and cave bears. The only real change the team reports over the time in the study is that Europe grew warmer and the plant cover denser, judging by higher nitrogen readings in the bear's bones.
www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2006-03-12-cave-bears-share_x.htm?POE=TECISVA
Fans of Clan of the Cave Bear, may recall Jean Auel's novel concluding that humans and their Neanderthal cousins just couldn't share the same cave. But what about humans and the cave bears from the book's title?
A look at France's Chauvet Cave, famously adorned with millennia of cave paintings marked by long, deep bear scratches, suggests cave-sharing between people and bears goes back a long way.
Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) died out in Europe within the last 15,000 years. But, "the question of a special relationship between cave bears and humans, such as hunting or worshipping, is still a debated issue," notes a study in the current Journal of Human Evolution. Basically the debate is over whether people revered the bears or ate them.
Led by Herve' Bocherens. of France's Universite Montpellier, the study team took a look at that special relationship by dating the cave bear bones littering the cave, located in southern France. Cave art there dates to 32,000 years ago, well before the bears became extinct.
In all, the team reports only 18 cave bear bones, a mixture of ribs, legs, hips and skulls, yielded enough soft tissue, or collagen, to accurately perform radiocarbon dating. (Radiocarbon dating measures the ratio of a form of radioactive carbon against a stable variety found in tissues. Since creatures stop breathing and accumulating carbon dioxide when they die, the amount of radioactive decay measured by that ratio serves as a "clock" for estimating the age of the creature.) The team also looked at nitrogen isotopes in the collagen.
One of the skulls used in the study was located in the "Salle du Crane" or "Cave of Skulls" chamber. It is the one famously found perched on a rock, where it may have served as target practice for the mammoth ivory-pointed spear-tips found nearby.
Cave bear bones litter Europe's caves and the species is thought to have lived on the continent as far back as 300,000 years ago. They were larger than grizzly bears, but were vegetarians, as shown by their teeth, broad grinding molars. Still you likely wouldn't want to antagonize one.
In Chauvet Cave, the cave bear bones mostly dated from about 28,000 to 30,000 years ago, including the target practice noggin, which dated to around 30,430 years old. One bear's jaw dated to more than 37,000 years ago. The nitrogen readings indicate that bear lived during a cold period in Europe.
"Both species used the cave," just not at the same time, the study concludes. The find demonstrates that people and bears traded ownership there, perhaps centuries apart, from 32,000 to 28,000 years ago. A hearth dated in the cave appears to be from 26,000 years ago as well. Although the spear points and target practice skulls tell a grim story, the researchers didn't report any evidence for conflict, or other interaction, between the humans and cave bears. The only real change the team reports over the time in the study is that Europe grew warmer and the plant cover denser, judging by higher nitrogen readings in the bear's bones.
www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2006-03-12-cave-bears-share_x.htm?POE=TECISVA
