Bear skins have been used by humans to ward off the cold for at least 300,000 years. Cut markings seen on the metatarsal and phalanx of a cave bear found at the Lower Paleolithic Schöningen site in Lower Saxony, Germany, imply this. As a result, it ranks as one of the oldest instances of this kind in existence.
A colleague from Leiden University and an archaeological team from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (SHEP) at the University of Tübingen collaborated on the study. The Journal of Human Evolution published the results of this investigation.
According to Ivo Verheijen, a scholar at Tübingen University, “cut marks on bones are frequently interpreted in archaeology as an indicator of the consumption of meat.” “However, the flesh that can be recovered from hand and foot bones is hardly any. In this instance, we may credit the meticulous skin-stripping process for leaving such small, exact incision scars.”
A bear’s winter coat is made up of both small, dense hairs that excel at insulating and long outside hairs that provide an airy protective covering. For hibernation, bears—including extinct cave bears—needed a coat that provided excellent insulation. The researcher is a doctoral student in the Schöningen research project and a worker for the State Heritage Office of Lower Saxony. “These newly discovered cut marks are an indication that about 300,000 years ago, people in northern Europe were able to survive in winter thanks in part to warm bear skins,” the researcher says.
Strong indication for hunting
But where did the bear skins come from? Ivo Verheijen continues, “Schöningen plays a vital part in the controversy concerning the origin of hunting because the earliest spears in the world were discovered here. Did those people also engage in bear hunting? The researcher claims that there are some signs in favor of this.
At Schöningen, all of the bear bones and teeth belonged to adult bears, which is typically seen as evidence of hunting when only adult animals are discovered at an archaeological site. Additionally, he added, bear skin must be removed quickly after the animal dies in order to preserve the hair and prevent the skin from losing its usefulness. The animal couldn’t have been dead for very long at that point because it had been skinned, according to Verheijen.
At Schöningen, all of the bear bones and teeth belonged to adult bears, which is typically seen as evidence of hunting when only adult animals are discovered at an archaeological site. Additionally, he added, bear skin must be removed quickly after the animal dies in order to preserve the hair and prevent the skin from losing its usefulness. The animal couldn’t have been dead for very long at that point because it had been skinned, according to Verheijen.
Pre-Inca Painted Skulls Using Red Pigments
