A study of the evolution of the Pleistocene cave bear by a morphometric analysis of the lower carnassial

Abstract : In this contribution a morphometric study of the lower carnassial of the Cave Bear (Ursus deningeri and Ursus spelaeus) from several populations of diverse European localities and also different ages is carried out. This study includes a morphological analysis of the deployment of dental cusps and metric comparisons focused on general size and convergence of the cusps. The morphologic study (by cluster analysis) presents a grouping trend of the populations according to their geographi position first, then to the chronology. This indicates that the expansion of the cave bear happened at a very early time, and that later did not exist great migratory movements that returned to put in contact remote populations. As for the metric analysis, differences in the degree of convergence of the cusps in the talonid and trigonid are only observed between the oldest sites (more convergent, smaller occlusal surface) and the modern ones (less convergent, larger occlusal surface) independently of their geographic location