The theory that the huge ancient cave bear died off around 15,000 years ago has been challenged by a new paper.

Martina Pacher and Anthony Stuart claim that Ursus spelaeus likely went extinct around 27,8000 years ago, and its problem was an ice-age triggered food shortage, not nasty men with pointy sticks.

“Its highly specialised mode of life, especially a diet of high-quality plants, and its restricted distribution left it vulnerable to extinction as the climate cooled and its food source diminished,” says Pacher, of the University of Vienna (press release).

In their new paper in Boreas, Pacher and Stuart construct a chronology of cave bears using radiocarbon dates in the literatures and their own work from the Urals. They conclude:

The disappearance of cave bear from central Europe coincides fairly closely with the cooling at the onset of Greenland Stadial 3 (c. 27.5 cal. kyr BP), and is most likely attributable to a marked deterioration in quantity and quality of available plant food. Its disappearance corresponds broadly with the withdrawal of many extinct and extant mammal species from large areas of Europe around the LGM [Last Glacial Maximum]. There is little or no convincing evidence of human involvement in cave bear extinction.

The Daily Telegraph says the arrangement of cave bear skulls and bones in caves used by ancient tribes “suggest they revered the animal and treated it as a god”.

More coverage

Cave bears killed by Ice Age, not hunters: study – Reuters