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Cave Bears and the Devil's Cave

© Beverly Eschberger

Germany has played a great role in the history of paleontological study. Many famous fossils have been found in Germany-Neanderthals and Mosasaurs were both originally discovered in Germany, and named after the locales where they were found. Even the Jurassic Period gets its name from the Jura Mountains of Germany. On a recent visit to Germany, my husband and I visited a site known as the Teufelshohle or "Devil's Cave."

The Teufelshohle lies near the village of Pottenstein in Bavaria (the southeast region of Germany). Some of the older formations in the cave system were formed about 1 million years ago, during the Pleistocene Era (1.8 million years to 10,000 years ago). The younger formations are only about 30,000 to 40,000 years old. The cave system had been explored by the local people for hundreds of years, but it was during the 1920's that a mining engineer named Professor Hans Brand and his men cleared out much of the rubble that had blocked areas of the cave, and opened chambers that had been blocked.

In addition to human visitors, the Teufelshohle has had many animal visitors over the years, and the bones of many "Hohlenbaren" or cave bears can still be seen lying in niches in the cave. A skeleton of one of these cave bears is on display in the Teufelshohle, and another can be seen at the museum in nearby Pottenstein. The bear skeletons are about 30,000 years old.

Bears are members of the Order Carnivora, Family Ursidae, that originated during the Oligocene Era (36 to 22.5 million years ago) of Europe. Bears are among the last group of mammals to appear in the fossil record. Today, the Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi is the largest living land carnivore it is roughly the same size as the cave bear.

Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) first appeared during the Pleistocene Era and went extinct during the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. Cave bears could reach about 10 feet (3.5 m) at the shoulder, and one German specimen reached over 12 feet (4 m) in length. They weighed about 1,800 pounds (800 kg). Cave bears were about 1/3 larger than the modern brown bear (Ursus arctos).

Cave bears spread across Europe during the Pleistocene Era, and became quite numerous. The remains of over 30,000 cave bears were found in the Drachenhohle ("Dragon's Cave") in Austria. It is believed that the bears gathered in caves to escape the harsh European Ice Age winters by hibernating together for warmth and protection. Many of the individuals found in the Drachenhohle were juveniles or old and diseased animals that appear to have not survived winter hibernation. Cave bears were hunted by Paleolithic humans; this, in addition to climate change, may have contributed to their extinction.

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