This is a tooth from a cave bear. My brother gave it to me some years ago and I keep it by my bedside, as a sort of link to the past and the world in which our ancestors lived.
The coin is to give an indication of scale. It's a Roman denarius, about 1 cm across.
The tooth looks pretty formidable, and I thought about what sort of a bite it could give. I imagined prehistoric people competing for cave space with what I though would have been carnivorous animals. However, to my surprise, studies of their teeth suggest they may have been substantially herbivorous [1].
Why did they die out? Some possibilities suggest themselves:
The bears' diet was too specialised (think about giant pandas), the plants they eat were affected by climate change and there wasn't enough food
Humans hunted them to extinction
Humans out-competed them.
It might have ben a combination of all these factors, or something entirely different. Further research may help us learn more about what happened to these fascinating beasts.
Cave Bears
This is a tooth from a cave bear. My brother gave it to me some years ago and I keep it by my bedside, as a sort of link to the past and the world in which our ancestors lived.
The coin is to give an indication of scale. It's a Roman denarius, about 1 cm across.
The tooth looks pretty formidable, and I thought about what sort of a bite it could give. I imagined prehistoric people competing for cave space with what I though would have been carnivorous animals. However, to my surprise, studies of their teeth suggest they may have been substantially herbivorous [1].Why did they die out? Some possibilities suggest themselves:
- The bears' diet was too specialised (think about giant pandas), the plants they eat were affected by climate change and there wasn't enough food
- Humans hunted them to extinction
- Humans out-competed them.
It might have ben a combination of all these factors, or something entirely different. Further research may help us learn more about what happened to these fascinating beasts.[1] Cave Bear: A Vegetarian Carnivore, https://www.senckenberg.de/en/pressemeldungen/cave-bear-a-vegetarian-carnivore/#:~:text=Together%20with%20an%20international%20team,had%20an%20exclusively%20vegetarian%20diet.