Cave Bear Hunting in the Hohle Fels, a Cave Site in the AchValley, Swabian Jura

The Upper Pleistocene cave deposits of the Hohle Fels revealed several well preserved traces of human modifications on cave bear bones, such as cut and blow marks. Beside these traces of man/bear interaction, a bear vertebra with an embedded flint projectile was found recently. These finds stem from the Gravettian layers. The injury documents the hunting of cave bear and the cut and impact marks provide evidence of all steps of the butchering process known from other game species. Thick layers of burned bone dating to the Gravettian contain bones identified as cave bear. Thus at Hohle Fels, cave bears were used for both nourishment and fuel