Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) Lived as far West as Spain during the Pleistocene

Remains of Asiatic black bears have been found at 5 fossil sites in Spain, showing this species formerly had a much more widespread range. Today, Asiatic black bears are restricted to mountainous regions of China, Japan, and a few other Asian countries, but during the Pleistocene they occurred across southern Siberia, the Ural Mountains, the Caucuses, and Western Europe. Recently, scientists discovered additional fossils of Asian black bears at the sites in Spain where they were previously found. It gave them an opportunity to compare these ancient specimens with other specimens.

Asiatic black bears occurred in Europe from about 620,000 years BP to about 100,000 years ago. It’s likely the onset of full glacial conditions restricted this species in Europe to a narrow refugia along the Mediterranean coast where modern humans, brown bears (U. arctos), and wild boars outcompeted them. Black bears are a forest and woodland species, habitat that mostly gave way to cold, arid grasslands during Ice Ages.

The Asiatic black bear is closely related to the American black bear (U. americanus). They probably had a common ancestor during the Miocene when temperate-subtropical woodlands existed across North America and Eurasia. A land bridge periodically connected the continents. Genetic studies are contradictory, but as a whole they estimate Asiatic black bears diverged from American black bears between 6 million years ago and 2 million years ago. Genetic studies do suggest the 2 are sister species. In turn American black bears are sister species to brown bears and polar bears (U. maritimus).

Asiatic black bear. I found this image on Wikipedia.

Present day range of the Asiatic black bear. Before the most recent Ice Age, they ranged all the way to western Europe.

Asiatic black bears have surprisingly small home ranges–some are smaller than a square mile. They gorge on forest mast and will also attack and kill large mammals more commonly than American black bears will. On occasion they will attack and kill people. They fall prey to tigers in ranges where they 2 species overlap.

Reference:

de Albvarado, de M.V,; et. al.

“Pleistocene Asian Black Bear (Ursus thibetanus, Cuvier 1823) in the Iberian Peninsula-New Evidence and a Complete Review”

Quaternary Science Review 325 Feb. 2024

Debunking the Lovelock Giants

I didn’t want to waste a whole blog article debunking this stupid click bait I came across, but I can’t let people think 9-foot-tall skeletons of Indians had ever really been found. A recent popular article written by Harriet Brewer and published by something called “Indy 300” was disseminated by Microsoft News. Brewer reported about an article published by a pseudo-archaeology magazine claiming archaeologists had discovered 9-foot-tall specimens of Indians in the Lovelock Cave in Nevada. The only human skeleton found in the cave measured about 6 feet tall. Early cave explorers mistakenly thought bones of mammoths were human bones, and their false assumption that they were bones of giant humans became tied to a local Indian legend of a giant race of cannibal humans who were forced into the cave and defeated once and for all by these local Indians. The Indian legend is likely based on the same mistaken assumption. Archaeologists have found 2000-year-old duck decoys buried in bat guano here. In any case there have been no bones of giant humans ever found anywhere. Ms. Brewer is a really shitty excuse for a journalist. Moreover, the New York Post is a really shitty excuse for a newspaper because they repeated this bogus claim in an article as well.