In collaboration with Keith Amery - Expert in Archaeological Finds and Remains
Apart from in Jean Auel’s famous children’s novel, ‘Clan of the Cave Bear’, cave bears are a largely overlooked prehistoric beast. But these gentle giants are in fact one of the most fascinating animals of the Pleistocene era. This week we have a complete prehistoric cave bear skeleton in our auction. Take a few minutes and discover more about these awesome animals and if you're as enthralled with them as we are, you can place your bids on the skeleton until the 22nd of October (2017).
Gentle Giants
The cave bear, or ‘ursus spelaeus’, was one of the giants of the Pleistocene era. A distant ancestor of the modern brown bear, males could weigh up to 500kg. The females, however, were significantly smaller, weighing closer to 200kg, which caused them to initially be misidentified as a different species. Despite their huge size, these gentle giants are thought to have mainly foraged for food, and not attacked other creatures except as a result of desperation.
Killed in Worship
These giant animals, or ‘megafauna’, were first identified in the 17th century. Since then, specimens have been found across Europe in France, Italy and Switzerland. An apparent deliberate arrangement of skulls was discovered at a cave site in Drachenloch, Switzerland, which suggested an early form of animal worship amongst the neanderthals and homo sapiens. This practice would eventually be responsible for the animal’s demise, just 50,000 years ago.
(Okay... you may have guessed this one). Like modern brown bears, it is believed the cave bear used these natural shelters for hibernation, a factor which eventually lead to their death. The encroachment of humans also seeking shelter led to the shrinking of the cave bear’s habitat and eventual extinction - an all too familiar story and one we should take note of with current environmental change and human habitation of the world’s remaining wildernesses.
Like its modern descendant, the brown bear, it is believed, despite its massive size, the cave bear was essentially a forager and lived mainly on a diet of fruit and occasionally fish. It is possible, as resources grew scarce, that they also ate one another. They would either scavenge the remains of cave bears that had not stored up enough fat to make it through winter hibernation, or even killed for survival, in seeking scarce shelter and food as domains diminished. As a hibernating species, the cave bears were also vulnerable to cave lions and cave hyenas with which they shared the environment.
This week at Catawiki, we have a fossil skeleton of the larger adult male cave bear, approximately 2 metres in length and dating back to the Pleistocene era (45,000 – 25,000 years ago). Successful attempts have been made to extract DNA from cave bear fossil specimens, showing the familial link to the modern brown bear. Between 90-95% complete, this is an extremely rare opportunity to acquire a complete fossil male adult cave bear specimen - which is why it has been valued at €10,890 - €14,200! This is just one exciting lot amongst several other fascinating Ice Age finds in our special Ice Age and Mammoth auction.
Or if you have an archaeological find you'd like to sell at auction, you can get started by registering as a seller here.