Bear Cults, Bear Worship, Bear Sacrifice, and the Cosmic Hunt

Cave Bear

“The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) is a prehistoric species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. Between the years 1917 and 1923, the Drachenloch cave in Switzerland was excavated by Emil Bächler. The excavation uncovered more than 30,000 cave bear skeletons. It also uncovered a stone chest or cist, consisting of a low wall built from limestone slabs near a cave wall with a number of bear skulls inside it. A cave bear skull was also found with a femur bone from another bear stuck inside it. Scholars speculated that it was proof of prehistoric human religious rites involving the cave bear, or that the Drachenloch cave bears were hunted as part of a hunting ritual, or that the skulls were kept as trophies.” ref

“In Archaeology, Religion, Ritual (2004), archaeologist Timothy Insoll strongly questions whether the Drachenloch finds in the stone cist were the result of human interaction. Insoll states that the evidence for religious practices involving cave bears in this time period is “far from convincing”. Insoll also states that comparisons with the religious practices involving bears that are known from historic times are invalid. A similar phenomenon was encountered in Regourdou, southern France. A rectangular pit contained the remains of at least twenty bears, covered by a massive stone slab. The remains of a Neanderthal lay nearby in another stone pit, with various objects, including a bear humerus, a scraper, a core, and some flakes, which were interpreted as grave offerings. An unusual discovery in a deep chamber of Basura Cave in Savona, Italy, is thought to be related to cave bear worship, because there is a vaguely zoomorphic stalagmite surrounded by clay pellets. It is thought to have been used by Neanderthals for a ceremony; bear bones scattered on the floor further suggests it was likely to have had some sort of ritual purpose.” ref

“Some evidence indicates that the cave bear used only caves for hibernation and was not inclined to use other locations, such as thickets, for this purpose, in contrast to the more versatile brown bear. This specialized hibernation behavior would have caused a high winter mortality rate for cave bears that failed to find available caves. Therefore, as human populations slowly increased, the cave bear faced a shrinking pool of suitable caves, and slowly faded away to extinction, as both Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans sought out caves as living quarters, depriving the cave bear of vital habitat. This hypothesis is being researched as of 2010. According to the research study, published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, radiocarbon dating of the fossil remains shows that the cave bear ceased to be abundant in Central Europe around 35,000 years ago. In addition to environmental change, human hunting has also been implicated in the ultimate extinction of the cave bear.” ref

“In 2019, the results of a large scale study of 81 bone specimens (resulting in 59 new sequences) and 64 previously published complete mitochondrial genomes of cave bear mitochondrial DNA remains found in Switzerland, Poland, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Serbia, indicated that the cave bear population drastically declined starting around 40,000 years ago at the onset of the Aurignacian, coinciding with the arrival of anatomically modern humans. It was concluded that human hunting and/or competition played a major role in their decline and ultimate disappearance, and that climate change was not likely to have been the dominant factor. In a study of Spanish cave bear mtDNA, each cave used by cave bears was found to contain almost exclusively a unique lineage of closely related haplotypes, indicating a homing behaviour for birthing and hibernation. The conclusion of this study is cave bears could not easily colonize new sites when in competition with humans for these resources.” ref

“Overhunting by humans has been dismissed by some as human populations at the time were too small to pose a serious threat to the cave bear’s survival. However, the two species may have competed for living space in caves. The Chauvet Cave contains around 300 “bear hollows” created by cave bear hibernation. Unlike brown bears, cave bears are seldom represented in cave paintings, leading some experts to believe the cave bear may have been avoided by human hunters or their habitat preferences may not have overlapped. Paleontologist Björn Kurtén hypothesized cave bear populations were fragmented and under stress even before the advent of the glaciers. Populations living south of the Alps possibly survived significantly longer.” ref

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“A number of cave bears are depicted in Chauvet. Cave bears are identifiable by the steep incline of their foreheads. These three bears of #1 are found near the prehistoric entrance [not the present entrance] to the cave, on a panel in a small recess. The bears are painted in red. The central bear has been painted using the natural relief in the cave wall, with the shoulder following the line of the rock surface. This is a common artistic technique employed in prehistoric parietal art, suggesting that the cave wall topography whilst seen by torch light inspired the subject matter. The central bear is a complete figure, whilst to the left of it is an isolated bear head, and to the right of it a near complete bear. This may depict a sleuth of bears. The artist used a technique known as ‘stump-drawing’ – the use of fingers or a piece of hide to paint the muzzle and to emphasize the outlines of the head and forequarters; a form of perspective.” ref

“Another example of human activity within the cave can be found in the Skull Chamber, #2. In this space it is possible to see prints and bones on the floor, and on the walls, claw marks, engravings, paintings, hand prints and torch wipes. But in the very center a cave bear skull was moved and placed on the rock. This would have been done either 32,000 to 30,000 or 27,000 to 26,000 years ago. Ten drawings are arranged over the area of #3. The animal figures include 3 bears, 2 felines – including a panther – 2 ibex, 3 unidentifiable animals and 1 red dot, made with the palm of the hand.” ref

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“Chauvet–Pont d’Arc, painted cave in southeast France considered to be one of the greatest Paleolithic sanctuaries ever discovered.” ref

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“Ursa Major, also known as the Great Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means “greater (or larger) bear”, referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa Minor, the lesser bear. In antiquity, it was one of the original 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE, drawing on earlier works by Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian astronomers. Today it is the third largest of the 88 modern constellations. Ursa Major has been reconstructed as an Indo-European constellation. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century CE astronomer Ptolemy in his Almagest, who called it Arktos Megale. It is mentioned by such poets as Homer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and also by Federico Garcia Lorca, in “Song for the Moon”. Ancient Finnish poetry also refers to the constellation, and it features in the painting Starry Night Over the Rhône by Vincent van Gogh. It may be mentioned in the biblical book of Job, dated between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE, although this is often disputed.” ref

“The Cosmic Hunt is an ancient and widely distributed family of cognate myths. The story involves a large animal pursued by hunters; the animal is wounded and transformed into a constellation. Variants of the Cosmic Hunt are common in cultures of Northern Eurasia and the Americas, and include the story of Callisto in classical sources. The prey animal is either a bear or an ungulate, and the associated constellation involves the four stars of the bowl in the Big Dipper asterism of Ursa Major. In some variants, blood or grease may fall from the wounded animal; in an Iroquois version, the blood causes leaves to change color in autumn. Sometimes the hunters are also placed in the firmament, represented by the stars of the Big Dipper’s handle.” ref

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What do our Oldest Myths mean? (Video)

“This video explores myths from creation to dragons to death to floods, and explains what they mean and where they come from, their age and origin. This is the first time I’ve given a talk combining all the key mythologies from many cultures into one video, and whether you are familiar with mythology or want to know more, this video will reveal secrets that other channels are not telling you. This is the story of the origins and truths about myths.” ref

The Strange Rituals of Siberian Bear Cults (Video)

“Examining a bear cult gives us a real window to look into the beliefs of cultures of the past. This video focuses on the Ket culture of Siberia.” ref

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Bear Worship and the Cosmic Hunt

“The Aurignacian is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where the Emiran period and the Ahmarian period form the first periods of the Upper Paleolithic, corresponding to the first stages of the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa. They then migrated to Europe and created the first European culture of modern humans, the Aurignacian. The Proto-Aurignacian and the Early Aurignacian stages are dated between about 43,000 and 37,000 years ago. The Aurignacian proper lasted from about 37,000 to 33,000 years ago. A Late Aurignacian phase transitional with the Gravettian dates to about 33,000 to 26,000 years ago. The type site is the Cave of Aurignac, Haute-Garonne, south-west France. The main preceding period is the Mousterian of the Neanderthals. One of the oldest examples of figurative art, the Venus of Hohle Fels, comes from the Aurignacian or Proto-Gravettian and is dated to between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago (though earlier figurative art may now be known, such as at the Lubang Jeriji Saléh site in Indonesia). It was discovered in September 2008 in a cave at Schelklingen in Baden-Württemberg in western Germany. The German Lion-man (Bear-man?) figure is given a similar date range.” ref

The Great Bear and the Cosmic Hunt

“In Siberia, bears were still held in special respect. Bears were believed to be representative of justice on Earth. Oaths were taken on a bear’s paw. They would kiss the paw and say, “May I be mauled by a bear, should what I say be a lie?”. The bear was not mentioned directly by its name but referred to by a title such as “Master of the Forest”. When hunters killed a bear, they would embrace it (Vladillen Tugolukov: Pathfinders on Reindeer Back, 1969)– even have sex with it – after it was dead, presumably. That was a custom taken into North America. It may be how syphilis got into the human population when it was not endemic in Siberia, only in America, and in bears. The idea was to keep the bear’s spirit amicably disposed to its killers.” ref

“They still hold Bear Feasts. (I did not enquire too closely about the other, except to observe the word was not in my dictionary). All the neighbours and guests would gather for the Bear Festival. When the bear is brought back to the village, women and girls throw snowballs (or water) at the hunters carrying the bear. Women were not allowed to attend the feast on the first day of the festival, which may last up to five days. The bear skin was stuffed and sat at the feast. The bear’s meat was eaten at the feast. Everyone dressed in their best clothes and performed masked plays, danced, and sang songs. Afterward,s the bear’s bones were laid out in a special way to enable its resurrection. More on Western Siberian, Mansi, bear festival.” ref

“In the far east of Siberia and northern Japan, a bear cub was hand-raised as a special pet, then sacrificed. Stories survive in western Siberia, in which the Bear is the son of God (that is, the Supreme Being or Sky God – as in many cosmological systems. His Father lowered him to Earth in a golden cradle (identified as the “Great Bear” constellation), and taught him how to make a fire and to hunt with weapons so he would never be cold and hungry. At the same time, he was told never to attack a human. In fact, the Bear was on a mission to see that honesty and justice reigned among mankind. But he forgot this and attacked people. So men killed him and took possession of fire and weapons.” ref

“The Bear is a culture hero who brings benefits to mankind and is also associated with the cycle of the seasons throughout the year, as well as life, death, and rebirth. Surviving ritual New Year festivities in some parts of Eastern Europe still enact this association of the Bear being killed, then brought back to life by a shaman-like figure. This association of the Bear, the Great Bear constellation, and the changing seasons is found in North American legends. They show how the Plough or Great Bear constellation goes around the sky, through the year, and through the night, acting as a nighttime clock and calendar. This story (abbreviated here) about the Great Bear constellation follows her progress and changing position right through the year. It shows the changing position in the night sky and the seasons, as well as the association of the bear with life – killed in the autumn, she is reborn in the spring.” ref

“Late in the spring, every year, the bear wakes from her long sleep, leaves her den, and goes in search of food. Chickadee catches sight of her and calls other hunters to assist him. With Chickadee and his pot (the double star) between Robin and Moose Bird, they chase the bear across the northern sky throughout the summer. About the middle of autumn, they overtake the bear who rears up on her hind legs. But Robin shoots her with his arro,w and she falls over on her back. Robin is splattered with blood, which splashes on the leaves of the trees below. Chickadee cooks the bear in his pot. Throughout the winter, the skeleton of the bear lies on its back in the sky. But her life spirit has entered another bear that lies upon her back in her den, invisible, hibernating. When spring comes round again, this bear will again leave her den and will be pursued by the hunters. She, in turn, will be slain but will send her life spirit to her den, from which she will come forth again when the sun once more awakens the sleeping earth.” ref

“In legends from Europe and Siberia, an elk steals the Sun in her antlers and is chased by the three hunters, one carrying a pot all night until they kill the elk and restore the Sun to rise again next morning. The next evening, her daughter begins the hunt all over again. These legends are pictured in rock drawings in places in Europe and Siberia. In Italy and Spain, too far south for elk, there is a deer. In Siberia, there were places where the spring hunting ritual was carried out or commemorated and sacrifices made for a successful hunting season, because many of these places are still sacred and have been in use for centuries. Female elk do not have antlers, and surviving Siberian legends, in which the part of female elk or female bear is played by the Great Mammoth Mother, gives a clue to the origins of both elk and bear stories with the mammoth hunters across the steppe tundra of Europe and Siberia, from 55,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago. (The last mammoths died out about 4,000 years ago).” ref

“Another clue to the ancient origins of this legend is that the mammoth dips into the sea and becomes half fish, symbolically between the upper and lower worlds. The myth must date from a time and latitude when Ursa Major dipped below the horizon for part of the year, as Cygnus does now. When mammoths had become an ancient myth, the memory of a shaggy beast became the bear, and the memory of the tusks catching the sun became the antlers of a female elk. In Europe and Siberia, this constellation was seen as a mother elk with antlers. Amongst recorded legends are several in which the Cosmic Elk steals the Sun and is chased through the night by a hero/god, or twin heroes, or three hunters, the middle one carrying a cooking pot (the double star). They kill the Elk, and the sun rises again. Although the Elk is dead, her daughter (Ursa Minor) survives, and the hunt begins again.” ref

“The Cosmic Hunt is illustrated in rock drawings. The skies were mapped not as actually observed but with the mythical beings and events associated with the patterns of stars. Rock drawings of this type in Spain and in Yakutia have been dated to about 6,000 years ago. Excavations by a rock drawing of this kind, constantly redrawn and maintained as a sacred site, in Yakutia, found offerings dating from the late Neolithic to the 19th century. In Siberia, hunters always carried out a spring hunting ritual symbolizing the killing of the Cosmic Elk. In March, this constellation is overhead. It has not always been the same, as the Earth wobbles and the north pole moves, in a 26,000-year cycle. Although it is never exactly back to the same place, this is predictable enough to be useful in dating ancient star charts, and even rock drawings and stories about the constellations.” ref

“In Canadian myths, the Ursa Major constellation is a female bear. She is chased throughout the year by three hunters – the middle one with the pot, and in autumn she is killed, her blood stains the leaves. She lies on her back all winter, then in spring her daughter rises and the hunt begins again. The American continent became populated by people from Eastern Asia from at least 30,000 years ago, when they would have travelled mainly by boat along the coastlines, since the North Pacific was warmer as the Bering Straits were continuous land, which blocked the Arctic Currents. New people continued to travel across the North Pacific and the Bering Straits, after the ice age, so there are cultural similarities.” ref

“To the ice-age mammoth-hunters who used Mammoth bones and hides to build their homes, the constellation appeared a little different to the way we see it today. That is because our Sun, with its planets, is moving at 43,400 miles per hour. It travels 380 million miles each year, and is presently passing through a cluster of stars which includes five of the stars in the Plough and the star Sirius, which can be seen twinkling bright pale blue near the horizon in the Southern sky in winter. Two of the stars in the Plough have nothing to do with the other five; they just appear by chance to us to be part of the pattern of the constellation. So as we are moving the position, we see these stars change relative to the others.” ref

“In China, Tao magicians put the Plough constellation in the centre of their divining boards, which had the significant directions all around. They made a spoon-shaped model of lodestone, and the handle always pointed south. It was the first compass. The idea had come from the spoon-shaped carved antler sticks representing the Plough used by Siberian shamans to beat their tambourines and also for divining by observing the direction they pointed when thrown down. What happens to the Great Bear/Cosmic Elk is seen further south, nearer the equator, so it dips over the horizon for part of the year. It becomes a crocodile!” ref

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Cosmic Hunt: Variants of Siberian-North American Myth

“The mythological motif of the Cosmic Hunt is peculiar to Northern and Central Eurasia and for the Americas but seems to be absent in other parts of the globe. Two distinct Eurasian versions demonstrate North-American parallels at the level of minor details which could be explained only by particular historical links between corresponding traditions. The first version (three stars of the handle of the Big Dipper are hunters and the dipper itself is an animal; Alcor is a dog or a cooking pot) connects Siberian (especially Western Siberian) traditions with the North-American West (Salish, Chinook) and East (especially with the Iroquois). The second version (the Orion’s Belt represents three deer, antelopes, mountain sheep or buffaloes; the hunter is Rigel or other star below the Orion’s Belt; his arrow has pierced the game and is seen either as Betelgeuze or as the stars of Orion’s Head) connects the South-Siberian – Central-Eurasian mythologies with traditions of North-American West – Southwest. Both variants unknown in Northeast Asia and in Alaska probably date to the time of initial settling of the New World. The circum-Arctic variant(s) (hunter or game are associated with Orion or thePleiades) are represented by neighbouring traditions which form an almost continuous chain from the Lapps to the Polar Inuit. This version could be brought across the American Arctic with the spread of Tule Eskimo.” ref

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Bears in Myth and Legend

“(First Bear Picture) Engraving from Les Combarelles, in Dordogne, France, possibly showing a cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). (Second Bear Picture) Another engraving, probably of the brown bear (Ursus arctos), from Trois Freres cave, in Ariege, France. It has been regarded as a bear wounded by spears and vomiting blood.” ref

“Similar characters are seen in various other bear pictures, such as a painting in black pigment from a cave by Santimamifie near Santander in northern Spain; two profile heads, one from Lascaux and one from La Madeleine, Dordogne; and a figurine from the Isturits Cave in the Pyrenees. There is no reason to regard any of these as anything else than brown bear. Two loose slabs from the cave La Colombiere in Ain, France, have engravings showing bears. One of them shows only the head, which has a rounded profile and an almost piglike snout. This may be a cave bear, as Abel suggests, but the evidence is hardly conclusive. The other slab shows the entire animal; the head is rather similar, but the limbs are fairly long and slender. Another creature of about the same type was depicted on a rock slab from Massat in Ariege. The chances are that all of these, too, are brown bears. Head of a bear, engraved on a slab found in the cave La Colombiere, in Ain, France. The shape of the muzzle and forehead suggested to Abel that it might be a cave bear. After Abel.” ref

“The Les Combarelles bear is shown moving slowly ahead, or possibly lying dead on its right side. There are curving lines over the body which may, or may not, represent spears. The cave paintings were long interpreted as works of so-called sympathetic magic: by drawing an animal, especially one with a spear in it, a hunter gained influence over the real animal and ensured a successful hunt. It is still being done. You take a photograph of some one you hate, stick needles in it, and expect the victim to die. But, as has been pointed out by Peter J. Ucko and André Rosenfeld, for example, this is only one of numerous possible interpretations of cave art, and there is little reason to prefer it, especially since very few animals are actually’ shown- wounded or in association with spears and the like. Alexander Marshack has found that many of the cave engravings were remade numerous times, apparently by different people. A ritual is indeed suggested, but its meaning is still unknown.” ref

“Probably the most remarkable art object in this connection is a headless clay sculpture of a bear found in 1923 by the intrepid speleologist Norbert Casteret in the cave of Montespan in the French Pyrenees. This is a life-size model, some two feet high (0.6 meters) and almost four feet long (1.2 meters) representing a massively proportioned bear, lying down on its belly. It is thought to have been originally covered by the skin of a bear, with the head fixed in its proper place by a wooden stick. The sculpture is riddled by spear marks, so it presumably was used for a ritual, perhaps of the sympathetic-magic type. M. Casteret and his assistant Henri Godin found the skull of a young bear between the forepaws of the sculpture. They knew that examination of the skull by a specialist would reveal which species was the object of this ritual.” ref

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Montespan Cave

“The Montespan cave (or Ganties-Montespan cave) is one of several famous paleolithic caves in the central Pyrenees. Noted for its rock engravings and clay reliefs, its most famous piece of cave art is a modeled clay sculpture of a headless bear, riddled with spear marks. All these works date to the Magdalenian culture, the final phase of the old Stone Age. The cave (also known as Grotte de Montespan, or Souterrain de Houantaou) is located in the communes of Montespan and Ganties of the Haute-Garonne, in south-west France.” ref

“Probably the most remarkable art object in this connection is a headless clay sculpture of a bear found in 1923 by the intrepid speleologist Norbert Casteret in the cave of Montespan in the French Pyrenees. This is a life-size model, some two feet high (0.6 meters) and almost four feet long (1.2 meters), representing a massively proportioned bear, lying down on its belly. It is thought to have been originally covered by the skin of a bear, with the head fixed in its proper place by a wooden stick. The sculpture is riddled by spear marks, so it presumably was used for a ritual, perhaps of the sympathetic-magic type. M. Casteret and his assistant Henri Godin found the skull of a young bear between the forepaws of the sculpture. They knew that examination of the skull by a specialist would reveal which species was the object of this ritual. An amazing similarity exists between bear ceremonies performed some 20,000 years ago during the Madelanian, and the Gilyak festivals from our own era. Deep in the interior of the Montespan cave (Houte-Garronne) Count Begouen discovered the headless clay figure of a bear. Between its forepaws lay the fallen skull of a real bear, which had once been attached to the figure itself. Thirty or so deep circular holes visible on the sculpture are assumed to be traces of spears or arrows used in the bear ceremony of 20,000 years ago. A bear skull found nearby has unfortunately been lost.” ref

“In a letter of August 17, 1974, M. Casteret tells of the fate of this skull, discovered more than fifty years earlier. He left it in place to be viewed by the experts (the Abbe Breuil, Dr. Capitan, Count Begouen, and Miss Garrod) who were immediately summoned to the Montespan cave. In the intervening two days, a small channel was dug to drain the inner part of the cave, which was flooded. But on returning to the statue, M. Casteret and the invited experts were startled to find the skull gone – stolen! So this skull, seen only by Casteret and Godin, was lost to science, and we shall probably never know which kind of bear was involved in the ritual of Montespan. Although there is no confirmation of a cave bear cult, at least we may assume that the species was well known to early men – Neandertal men and, after them, Cro-Magnon men-who lived at the same time. We know that the brown bear and the grizzly bear have been assiduously hunted in modern times, even to their extermination in many areas. Did early man hunt the cave bear too?” ref

“The idea that there were tribes specialized in the hunting of cave bears, and that they were responsible for at least some of the accumulations of bear remains in caves, crops up from time to time. Professor Lothar F. Zotz even speaks of a bear-hunting phase in the economy of early man. An amibitious attempt to characterize such man-made assemblages was made by Heinz Bachler, the son of Emil Bachler. On the basis of a careful analysis of isolated teeth, he was able to show certain differences in the age structures of the bear populations of different caves. In some caves, the number of cubs and young animals was especially high, and these he interpreted as bear-hunting stations; for, no doubt, early man would have found the immature bears easier to kill than the adult. There are several reasons to reject the suggestion of specialized bear-hunting tribes. In the first place, the high phosphate content of the bear cave earth proves that many of the animals were left to rot on the spot and were not eaten. Phosphate is also formed in caves settled by man, but the content is much lower. As to the large number of young found in most caves, this is only to be expected from natural mortality, which strikes most heavily at the immature and the aged.” ref

“Then, there are very few, if any, stone implements in most bear caves. Any prolonged settlement by Paleolithic man tends to be marked by the sprinkling of innumerable flint flakes. The skinning and cutting up of a killed bear is quite an undertaking, and in the process more than one flint implement is likely to be damaged and discarded. There should also be butchering cuts on the bones. But the marks that are actually found, are either haphazard breaks due evidently to “dry transport” and the like, or marks left by scavengers and gnawing animals. Broken-up long bones have been thought to show that man broke them to get the marrow out, but the long bones of a bear do not have an easily extracted marrow like those of an ox or sheep. The hyena can utilize the nutriment concealed in the bone of a bear, by smashing it and eating it as such, but this is beyond man. In the typical bear cave, there are also lots of shed milk teeth, in which the roots have been resorbed. This proves that young bears were hibernating peacefully in the cave at the time, for such teeth came from living bears, not from dead ones.” ref

“Many caves also show other mementos of the presence of bears. Scratch marks and footprints occasionally occur, but of course do not necessarily prove that the cave was visited more than a few times. The so-called Barenschliffe (‘Bearpolish’) tells a very different story. They are found in narrow passages, on the ceiling or the walls, and sometimes on loose slabs that are now found embedded in the cave earth but which once formed part of the ceiling or wall. They are surfaces polished to a mirror-like sheen by the passage of innumerable bears during hundreds or thousands of years. Few things speak more eloquently of the vastness of geological time and the cumulative numbers of living beings that have trodden one and the same path than these bear-polished limestones.” ref

The big bones of the cave bear may well have been useful to man as implements. A thighbone would have made a splendid club, and a mandible with the canine tooth remaining could have been used as a scraping or digging tool. But there is little evidence of the actual use of cave bear bones. The wear marks found on the cave bear teeth are natural ones, brought about by the bear itself when it was still alive. Sometimes, pieces of bone show a polish of the same type as the Barenschliffe and very likely due to similar causes: partly embedded in matrix, the exposed part of the bone was worn by animals swishing by. Some of the big canine teeth of the cave bear actually wore down in such a peculiar manner that unwary students have been led completely astray. One type of wear tends finally to weaken the tooth so much that its outer part breaks off and is lost. That discarded tooth fragment looks so much like a knife blade, well polished by use, that it was once described as the “Kiskevely knife” (after a Hungarian site of that name), supposedly of human manufacture. It was Koby who presented the true explanation of this odd pseudoimplement.” ref

“In stories about the Ice Age, the cave bear is generally depicted as a comparatively easy prey, in spite of its great size. In contrast, the brown bear is thought to have been much respected and avoided. There are various restorations and accounts of the supposed methods of cave bear hunting. Perhaps the most vivid account is that given by Othenio Abel, who speculated about the manner in which Ice Age man might have hunted the bear of the Mixnitz Dragon Cave. He suggested that the hunters might have found it advantageous to arrange an ambush inside the cave, while the bear was away. When the bear finally appeared, it was killed or stunned by a rapid hit over the nose. The important thing (averred Bachofen-Echt) was to damage certain nerves, thus producing instant paralysis. As a medical man, Koby immediately branded this a tall story: damage to the olfactory nerves, which are the only important nerves in the area, will produce neither paralysis nor instant death.” ref

“The hunter being right-handed, the ensuing damage to the skull of the clubbed bear should be found on the left side. Other accounts of cave bear hunting also stress damage to the left side of the skulls of wounded bears. However, of the skulls from the Mixnitz cave, six are damaged on the left side, sixteen on both sides, and one on the right; incidentally, all of the skulls probably were damaged after death. Two skulls show partially healed lesions that were caused during life, but whether they were caused by a weapon wielded by man, by rockfall from the ceiling of the cave, or by some other agency, would be difficult to decide. A celebrated find from the Sloup Cave in Moravia, Czechoslovakia, was published by Jindrich Wankel in 1892. Wankel found the top part of a skull (probably, but not certainly, that of a cave bear), with a partially healed lesion.” ref

“Some hours after the finding of the skull, two workmen discovered a flint piece in the same part of the cave. Could this have been part of the weapon that caused the lesion and then stuck in the head of the bear, finally to be dislodged after the bear had died and its flesh disintegrated? Unfortunately, the flint piece does not look much like any sort of projectile point, least of all like the Solutrean laurel point shown in Wankel’s figure. It is not uncommon to find a bear skull with peculiar lesions on top of the head. Are we to assume that Neandertal man when wishing to kill a bear, habitually took a swipe at the top of its head? Let us not underestimate the intelligence and professional knowledge of these early men, who lived by hunting and assuredly knew all there was to know about the effects of their arms. You can kill a man by hitting him over the head, but to kill a bear that way, and particularly a cave bear with its immense sinus cavities, would call for more than superhuman strength. In fact, some of the lesions found on cave bear skulls are probably due to rockfall, while others point to inflammations with resulting osteolysis – the bone is “eaten away.” ref

“What happens when man meets bear? Half a century ago, an amazing answer came from the Swiss Alps. During the years 1917 to 1921 Emil Bachler, of the museum in St. Gallen, Switzerland, dug the Drachenloch Cave – one of the “Dragon’s Lairs” – near Vattis in the Tamina Valley. The cave, at an altitude of 7,335 feet (2,240 metres) above sea level, forms a deep tunnel running more than 200 feet (70 metres) into the cliff. The deposit in the cave turned out to contain an immense number of cave bear remains, including several well-preserved skulls and complete limb bones. At that elevation, the site would have been inaccessible during the glaciation; thus the bears must date from the interglacial, the time of early Neandertal man in Europe. To his surprise, Bachler came to realize that the skulls and bones were by no means scattered haphazardly. On the contrary, they seemed to be oriented rigidly in certain preferred directions. Could they have been deliberately placed by man? Soon, there were further discoveries that made Bachler sure.” ref

“The finds in the Drachenloch were reported by Bachler in 1923 and in another report that he published seventeen years later. The most remarkable find was that of a large stone coffin or chest, containing a group of cave bear skulls and covered by a large stone slab. All of the skulls were pointing the same way. The coffin was about three feet (I metre) high; the sides consisted of limestone slabs, which, like the cover, had originally fallen down from the ceiling of the cave. Unfortunately, in the course of the excavation, workmen destroyed the chests, and no photographs were taken. It is even more unfortunate that Bachler’s two sketches, published in 1923 and 1940 and purporting to show the chests and their situation within the cave, are quite contradictory. They agree in showing the chest resting upon layer V in the sequence of strata in the cave (the layers were numbered from top to bottom). They also agree in the outline of the cave walls and ceiling, showing that both pictures are supposed to represent a north – south cross section. Otherwise, however, hardly anything is the same.” ref

“In the figure of 1923, for instance, a large chest is shown with two skulls seen in profile, facing south. Layer IV, which rests on top of the chest, contains various long bones and a skull facing the same way. Beside it is another, slightly smaller chest containing long bones. The walls of the chests are made of small, horizontal, even slabs resembling bricks. In the 1940 picture, the big stone chest is still there, but this time it contains six or seven skulls, all of which face east (presumably a more orthodox direction, comments Koby). The second chest with the long bones is now much smaller, and, in addition, a sort of wall has appeared at the southern end, enclosing more bones. The walls of the chest are now built of vertical slabs, and the skull in layer IV has vanished. “Le myth est définitivement cristallisé,” remarked Koby.” ref

“These are not, of course, the only finds at Drachenloch Cave that suggested to Bachler the ordering hand of Paleolithic man. There was, for instance, a bear skull with the thigh bone of another bear stuck through its cheek in such a way that it could only have been gotten in by twisting it around. In 1940, Bachler noted the finding of a skull resting upon two parallel shin bones (tibiae). It is the same skull, but in 1921 the thighbone was stuck through the left cheek, and in 1940, through the right. Also, Bachler’s description does not agree with the picture, for the sketch shows the whole arrangement of bones resting upon a flat slab of rock, while the description states that “curiously enough, this small deposit of bones did not have a stone slab for a base.” Actually, Bachler was not present when the find was made.” ref

“Is there, then, any other evidence of the presence of man, apart from this ‘curious arranging of the bones? In fact, they are precious few. There are no flint implements. There are no burnt bones. There are no butchering cuts on the bones. All there is are some hearths, indicating that an occasional visitor or group made a brief stop. Any prolonged stay would certainly have been reflected in the sprinkling of numerous flints. But how could such elaborate structures as the suggested stone coffins have come about if not erected by man? And the alignment of the bones? There is no question of a hoax. Bachler was known as an honorable, ardently patriotic man, and he certainly believed in the existence of the stone chests that he described. To understand this situation, we must go into how bear skulls and bones are actually preserved in caves. And the story begins with a hibernating cave bear dying in the cave (just why it died does not concern us for the moment).” ref

“It would sometimes happen that after death, the great bear cadaver remained unnoticed by scavengers such as hyenas, wolves, and gluttons and was left to moulder away. (The glutton is a relation of the martens and sables. Having also somewhat nomadic habits, it is constantly migrating within its enormous hunting territory, reaching sometimes 1,000 square miles. In appearance, this animal resembles rather a small bear than the marten, being of heavy build with round ears and long brownish shaggy fur. It is about two and one half feet long and can weigh about 37-40 pounds. It inhabits the tundra and taiga regions of both Eurasia and North America). As the soft parts disintegrated, great amounts of phosphate were produced. Now, the deposit in a bear cave is often very rich in this substance, which may make up as much as 50 to 55 percent of the total, and is often mined commercially. Bat guano, which is found in some bear caves, also contains phosphate, but the content is much lower, less than 10 percent. Therefore, the main source of phosphate found in bear caves was from the rotting bear flesh.” ref

“Skin and flesh gone, the cadaver winds up as a skeleton lying on the cave floor where the bear died. But this is only the beginning of its story; more about it presently. It could also happen that scavengers did come across the body; they would eat the soft parts and pull the skeleton to pieces. Hyenas might smash some of the bones. Hyenas are known to swallow quite large pieces of bone, which are regurgitated. After some time, more or less affected by bowel juices and movements. The result may be curiously suggestive of human interference: perfectly round holes may appear in the bones, pieces of bone may become wedged together as if intentionally, and so on. Also, the hyena-bitten bones splinter into sharp edges and so may take on the appearance of implements fashioned by man. The end result of the scavengers’ work is now a disarticulated skeleton scattered over the floor of the cave, the individual bones in varying states of disrepair.” ref

“In time, the cave will get a new inhabitant, most likely another cave bear, which will enter it in the autumn to prepare for hibernation. The bones and fragments on the floor will be in the bear’s way and will be trampled to pieces. The larger objects, for instance such skulls and long bones that have not been broken into fragments, will be pushed to the side. Typically, they will finish up somewhere by the walls; as every bear cave explorer knows, most of the well-preserved skulls are found by the walls of the cave. The chance of surviving is particularly good if they get pushed into a niche that protects them from rockfall and other damage. “In the Petershohle in Germany, a rock niche, situated like a cupboard in the rock, contained five Cave Bear skulls, two thigh bones, and one brachial bone,” stated Professor Abel in 1935. He went on to say, “All these pieces must have been put into this niche by Ice Age Man, as a deposit formed by water is quite out of the question.” ref

“Of course, it does not have to be a niche in the wall. Any kind of protecting rock will do. Such protecting niches may be produced at any place in the cave by rockfall from the ceiling. Percolating and freezing water gradually widens the cracks in the limestone that forms the bedrock of the cave. The cracks often form in the bedding plane of the limestone. In time, pieces of rock, some of them flattish slabs, are dislodged and fall down on the floor. If there is already rubble on the floor, the rock may be left in a more or less vertical position and will be likely to protect the bones that get pushed in beside it. Further rockfall from the roof may occur in the same place, and in many cases will result in slabs being left in standing or semierect positions if they hit obstructions already present on the floor.” ref

“Meanwhile, the cave deposit is slowly built up by the dust brought in by animals, by the guano dropped by bats, which often roost in great numbers in caves, and by the products of the disintegration of the various animals that die in the cave. In time, the cave earth will also fill the interstices in the niches or “chests,” and we arrive at a final situation that, with some moderate stretching of the imagination, may well be ascribed to deliberate burials. It is evident that repeated pushing of such elongate objects as skulls, jaws, and long bones into niches or along walls will inevitably tend to align them in the same direction, suggesting that they were positioned by intent. In fact, all of the pushing, trampling, gnawing, biting, swallowing and regurgitating, pounding by falling rocks, and so on, which the bones undergo in a well-frequented cave-and which Koby comprises, under the single term “dry transport” (“charriage a sec”)-is likely to produce, from time to time, the most peculiar results.” ref

“And we must remember that such freaks or oddities are precisely the ones that tend to be selected for survival by natural agencies. For instance, skulls in niches are likely to be preserved, while skulls in the middle of the cave floor will be trampled to fragments and survive only as isolated teeth and pieces of bone pushed down into the earth. It is estimated that some 30,000 to 50,000 bears died in the Dragon Cave near Mixnitz, but only some 76 good skulls were found. One skull out of 500 or thereabouts! No wonder skulls in bear caves look as if somebody had put them in a safe place. Taking this possibility into account, it now seems impossible to accept the evidence for deliberate burials of bear skulls and other bones in the Drachenloch Cave near Vattis. The same goes for other sites, such as the Petershohle in southern Germany, the Dragon Cave near Mixnitz in Austria, and the Wildenmannisloch in Switzerland, where deliberate positioning of skulls and bones has been claimed, though not in actual “chests.” ref

“In the Petershohle, for example, ‘a great accumulation of skulls was found together with a lot of rocks; one skull was close to a hearth, but the bone showed no trace of burning. Of course, the rock rubble would tend to protect those skulls that came to rest among the stones, so that the whole arrangement may perfectly well be due to natural causes. In the Mixnitz cave, there is a lateral passage called the Abel Gallery, which was found to contain no less than forty-two bear skulls and many long bones. Here, too, man was supposed to have intervened, but Joseph Schadler considered natural causes sufficient to account for the accumulation. In the Wildenmannisloch, Bachler found bear skulls with slabs of limestone resting on top, “making the impression of having been intentionally placed in a horizontal position,” an impression that is rather weakened by the reflection that most flat slabs of rock will naturally come to rest in a horizontal position.” ref

“Enthusiasm for the ‘bear cult’ is naturally contagious. Secondhand and third hand quotations from the original works often tend to glorious embellishment – to be found even in the writings of such a sober prehistorian as the Abbe Breuil himself, who once referred to the Petershohle as a Paleolithic “tabernacle.” In Abel’s description of the Drachenloch there were “several stone chests,” each containing four to five bear skulls, and there also were “numerous stone and bone artifacts” together with the bear remains, although in fact no flints at all were found. All this, according to Abel, proves that “during the Mousterian period in Central Europe, the killing of bears was accompanied by skull and long bone sacrifices.” The most trivial occurrences have been cited as evidence for the cult of the cave bear. It is known, for instance, that certain Siberian tribes reverence the bear and, among other things, extract certain teeth from the skulls. Thus, the finding of a cave bear skull without incisor and canine teeth may well bring to mind, sufficiently prepared by ardent belief, the conviction that this is a Neandertal parallel to the modern practice. If you come with such an argument to a museum curator, the best you can hope for is a sad smile; he will have profound knowledge of the ease with which certain teeth tend to drop out of drying skulls.” ref

“The bear feast of the Lapps, often mentioned in discussions of bear cults, was a hunting rite, not a sacrifice. After the ceremonial eating of the bear, the bones were buried, generally with at least the skull and some other bones in approximately correct position. Many such bear graves have been found, but they show no resemblance to the Alpine bear caves. We must conclude, with Koby, that there is no real evidence for a cave bear cult among the Neandertal men who inhabited Europe in the last interglacial and the earlier part of the last glaciation. There may have been a bear cult, but we have no proof. It is more regrettable that the Drachenloch structures, whatever they were, were not properly documented by means of photography, detailed plans, and so on. When we come to the time of modern man in Europe, from about 35,000 years ago to the end of the Ice Age, some 10,000 years ago, the evidence is somewhat better. And yet it does not tell us as much as we might hope, or as much as some students have claimed.” ref

“The art of Paleolithic man is often thought to have religious significance. It is generally agreed that this art dates from the latter half of the last glaciation, when Europe was inhabited by men of modern type Cro-Magnon man and his successors. We find the remains of such peoples associated with a sequence of Late Paleolithic cultures, many of which excel in the arts of painting, engraving, and sculpture. Most of the pictures represent animals, and the majority are game animals of the type that would have been important in the economy of those hunting tribes-the bison, the wild ox, the ibex, the red deer, the reindeer, the horse, the mammoth, and so on. A few large carnivores are also shown – they were probably seen as rivals or enemies rather than as game. The relationship between these two categories in the famous painted cave of Lascaux in Dordogne, France, is typical: there are more than 200 figures showing game animals, but only 6 or 7 lions and a bear. Altogether, there are about 100 bear representations in Paleolithic art.” ref

“Moreover, when we look in detail at the bear pictures, it seems that most of them probably represent the living species Ursus arctos -the brown bear- and not the cave bear at all. To be sure, it is not easy to tell which species is meant when they are so closely related as the brown bear and the cave bear, and moreover, we do not know exactly what the cave bear looked like in life. In addition, we have no guarantee that the cave artists were concerned with exact realism (on the contrary, there is even one case of what seems to be a bear with the tail of a wolf). One of the finest bear pictures comes from the cave of Teyjat in Dordogne. The animal certainly looks very like a brown bear. Although the head is well-rounded, the limbs are relatively long and slim. The same species is probably represented by a very peculiar engraving in the cave of Trois-Freres in Ariege, France. This bear, according to Count Begouen and the Abbe Breuil, seems to be vomiting its blood, and there are various signs on its body, some of them perhaps representing spears or other projectiles. The bear’s flat and low head profile apparently proclaims it a brown bear and not a cave bear.” ref

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Human modifications on cave bear bones from the Gargas Cave (Hautes-Pyrénées, France)

“This paper examines seven cave bear remains modified by prehistoric people. These remains come from the Aurignacian and Gravettian levels of the Gargas Cave (Hautes-Pyrénées, France). One Aurignacian artifact and three Gravettian objects were previously unpublished, along with other pieces. These osseous artifacts allow us to discuss the status of Ursus spelaeus for the Aurignacian and Gravettian human populations that lived in the Gargas Cave.” ref

The Cult of the Cave Bear: Prehistoric Rite or Scientific Myth?

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“The Dnieper Balts were a subgroup of the Balts that lived in the Dnieper river basin for millennia until the Late Middle Ages, when they were partly destroyed and partly assimilated by the Slavs by the 13th century. To the north and northeast of the Dnieper Balts were the Volga Finns, and to the southeast and south were the ancient Iranians, the Scythians. In the late Bronze Age, the Balts lived in territories from what is now the western border of Poland to the Ural Mountains. However, some propose a smaller territory of Baltic inhabitation from the Vistula in the west to at least as far as Moscow in the east and as far south as Kyiv. According to some researchers, the pagan religion of the Dnieper Balts included the veneration of pillars with bear heads.” ref

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“The baculum, also known as the penis bone, penile bone, os penis, os genitale, or os priapi, is a bone in the penis of many placental mammals. It is not present in humans, but is present in the penises of some primates, such as the gorilla and the chimpanzee. The baculum arises from primordial cells in soft tissues of the penis, and its formation is largely influenced by androgens. The bone lies above the urethra, and it aids sexual reproduction by maintaining stiffness during sexual penetration. The homologue to the baculum in female mammals is the baubellum (os clitoridis), a bone in the clitoris.” ref

“It has been argued that the “rib” (Hebrew צֵלׇע ṣēlāʿ, also translated “flank” or “side”) in the story of Adam and Eve is actually a mistranslation of a Biblical Hebrew euphemism for baculum, and that its removal from Adam in the Book of Genesis is a creation story to explain this absence (as well as the presence of the perineal raphe – as a resultant “scar”) in humans. In Hoodoo, the folk magic of the American South, the raccoon baculum is sometimes worn as an amulet for love or luck. Oosik (Iñupiaq: usuk or uzuk) is a term used in Alaska Native cultures to describe the bacula of walruses, seals, sea lions and polar bears. Sometimes as long as 60 cm (24 in), fossilized bacula are often polished and used as a handle for knives and other tools. The oosik is a polished and sometimes carved baculum of these large northern carnivores.” ref

Of Penis Bones and Shamans

“How could the originators of the biblical story of Eve’s creation have known that humans are exceptional in lacking a penis bone? In addition to the exceptions among primates, numerous other placental mammal species lack a baculum. This is true, for instance, of rabbits, treeshrews, elephants, sea cows, all hoofed mammals (both odd-toed and even-toed), dolphins, and whales. As far as domestic beasts in biblical times are concerned, many are hoofed mammals that consistently lack a penis bone. Although potentially relevant carnivores do have one, it is quite small in cats and conspicuous only in dogs. I concluded that the notion that a bone had been lost from the human penis could only have come from knowledge of the anatomy of dogs. Yet it was difficult to see how that connection might have been made.” ref

“Two factors recently prompted me to reconsider my skepticism regarding loss of the human penis bone and the biblical tale of Eve’s creation. The first impetus came from reading a very interesting blog posting on the topic of serendipity, defined as “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way”. In fact, I am currently benefiting from a Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin, with plenty of freedom to probe more deeply into diverse aspects of human reproductive biology. The second, more direct, stimulus came serendipitously from a now-completed translation project with my son Oliver. Over the summer, we joined forces to translate Jean Clottes’ book Pourquoi l’art paleolithique from French into English. In this fascinating text, Clottes presents a case for his controversial hypothesis linking Paleolithic cave art to shamanic rites. Regardless of whether the reader is convinced by his carefully marshalled arguments, the book is an enthralling compendium of information from Clottes’ on-site investigations on five continents of surviving connections between shamanism and rock art. In the chapter reporting information from his extensive travels, Clottes mentions in passing that for a Siberian shaman the bear was the most important animal and that its penis bone was a symbol of power. Bears are widely regarded as rather special because of a tendency to walk around on their hindlimbs. Yet I had never considered bears as a possible source of ancient knowledge about penis bones in the Middle East.” ref

Sexual Symbol or Domestic Tool? The Use of Bear Bacula – an Assessment of the Archaeological and Ethnological Record

“The present paper attempts at understanding the background to and possible use of bear bacula in Stone Age contexts. Particular focus is given to the baculum from the Late Palaeolithic site of Bonn-Oberkassel. In order to allow for a more general interpretation of such finds, their meaning and symbolism, we compare the Palaeolithic evidence with ethnographic contexts.” ref

“Other taphonomic approaches concerning the ‘cave bear bone industry’ postulated by Bächler argued for the presence of pseudo-tools as the result of natural sediment rounding (charriage à sec), and excluded anthropogenic modification. Gradually, a general scepticism against cave bear hunting and cave bear bones as a resource for bone tools arose amongst scientists, however, brown bear hunting was never questioned. More recently, zooarchaeological research has documented both hunting and exploitation of cave bears. But even symbolic or ritual behaviour seemed to occasionally involve bear remains in the Palaeolithic, as highlighted by the clay sculpture of a bear in Montespan cave or the skull deposition in Grotte Chauvet, both in France, or the ochre-stained cave bear bones in Goyet and Trou de Chaleux in Belgium. Another indication of the important role bears played in the life of Palaeolithic hunters are their depictions in Palaeolithic parietal art, such as in Grotte Chauvet, in Grotte du Péchialet, in Les Trois-Frères, all in France, and in mobile art as the ivory sculptured bear from Geißenklösterle cave in SW-Germany. Overall, 55 depictions in 23 caves (parietal art) and nearly 80 depictions on objects (mobile art) are known from Europe. Aside these, the close ties between humans and bears are also documented in personal ornaments, such as bear tooth pendants (of canines or incisors), probably worn as amulets, which have been found at several Palaeolithic cave sites, or in Mesolithic burial contexts. All these examples attest to a special relationship between humans and bears. In the following, our contribution focuses on a rather rare ursine bone, the penis bone or baculum. The possible use and/or symbolism of the baculum provides some peculiarities in ethnological as well as archaeological contexts.” ref

“The Tuva people from southern Siberia also see penis bones of bears as a symbol of power and strength. The Ket people, who settle along the Yenisei river in Siberia are known to deposit the bear skull, skin, snout, lips, gallbladder, eyes and penis in a box, together with an image of a bear sketched on birch bark, upon killing a bear. Together with a cedar-twig, braided into a ring, which symbolically joins the different body parts, this deposition makes it possible for the bear to be reborn in the forest. Several authors relate to the Saami of northern Scandinavia, who understood penis bones of bears to be particularly powerful and strong, therefore kept them and attached them to sacred drums. Some sources mention that amongst the Finnish Saami, anyone killing a bear received its skin, head and baculum. The baculum-tradition is part of a fundamental sexual key aspect of typical bear stories in which the mythical bear of the North tends to be male. Other sources state that Saami men would greet bears in the manner of an approaching groom, whilst Saami women would avoid bear penises and penis bones and instinctively protect their abdomens. In native cultures of Alaska, in which bacula of other carnivores are frequently used, the fossilised bacula of polar bears were often polished and used as hilts for knives and other tools. In indigenous people from the northern American continent the successful bear hunter received a dog whip with a handle made from a bear’s penis bone. The Inuit, on the other hand, associate the bone with male initiation rites to adulthood. Shamans use Polar Bear penis bones in traditional Inuit ceremonies. Here, the penis bone is believed to aid communication with the spirit world. By holding the bone in his hand, the Shaman is able to receive the thoughts and will of the spirits (oral communication of Shaman Hivshu). The contexts in which bacula are used in indigenous societies are distinguished very clearly by their bringing power and strength to the owner, independently of their use as a tool, such as handles, or for Shamanistic ceremonies. Noteworthy is their ubiquitous significance in protecting women against infertility. As with tools, this might be related to their assumed property of giving the owner the power and strength to ease potency. Moreover, male or he-bears are not only seen as the forbear, but also as grooms replacing the human husband.” ref

“In addition, there are longitudinal cut-marks probably caused by defleshing. We suggest the marked polish to be use wear originating from leather working similar to the polish seen on smoothers. Another baculum of Ursus spelaeus comes from the cave site Vindija in northwestern Croatia. The stratigraphic provenience is heavily debated. Karavanić argues that the organic tools, mainly bone points, but also the decorated baculum, from layer G1 are of Upper Palaeolithic character, but produced or traded by Neanderthals. The cave bear penis bone is exceptionally decorated with multiple circumferential scorings – a pattern that we only know from Upper Palaeolithic contexts. It obviously provides no traces of use as a tool, but closer study of the object is needed. Manipulated or decorated ursine penis bones in archaeological context are firstly recognized at Vindija cave. Its potential Middle Palaeolithic age, however, is contradictory and not securely established. Furthermore, the kind of decoration found on this specimen hints at symbolic communication, which is interpreted as an essential feature of modern human behavior and which is thought to first appear with the Upper Palaeolithic. Other specimens from Upper Palaeolithic contexts display different anthropogenic modifications, like longitudinal striations or cuts, as described from Hohle Fels, Teufelsküche, and Bonn-Oberkassel, which most probably relate to skinning of the penis bone or removal of the periost. In a second step, some of these items were used as tools, most probably as awls, as shown by old-fractures and respectively removed tips (distal end), such as in the case of Brillenhöhle, Teufelsküche, and Bonn-Oberkassel. The intensively polished baculum from Hohle Fels is likely linked to leather working. In all these cases, the bacula reflect a chaîne operatoire that informs us on technological choices and sequences of production. In Shamanka II, several modifications are reported, but unfortunately, these are not documented in further detail. Seemingly, at Shamanka II, bacula were used as tools, and a gender related association with male graves appears apparent.” ref

“To date, no farming society has been documented in which bear remains and, in particular, bear bacula are of considerable interest. The burial place of Shamanka II provides obvious similarities concerning the use of bacula in present-day indigenous Siberian people, where bacula are gender-related and refer to males. Such gender-related back-ground is also possible for the double burial of Bonn-Oberkassel, although it is not clear, whether the baculum as a grave good and tool covered with hematite was given to either (or both) the male or the female. One may conclude that the use of bear bacula by humans developed from their use as tools towards symbolically charged objects. Most intriguingly, this may be expressed through their integration into human burial contexts, as seen at the Late Palaeolithic site of Bonn-Oberkassel, and also in the extraordinary grave goods of the Siberian burial place of Shamanka II. While at Shamanka II the os penis was mainly used as a grave good for adult males, indigenous Siberian hunter-gatherer groups tend to see it as a symbol to enhance female fertility. However, it also reflects the fear of impotency in men, which may therefore place the object in a ‘complementary’ female context. Nonetheless, it is possible to conclude that the baculum is generally seen as a symbol for the strength and power of the bear: by wearing or using it, men and women hope for the transmission of their strength and power to themselves.” ref

Bear Worship

“Bear worship is the religious practice of the worshipping of bears found in many North Eurasian ethnic religions such as among the Sami, Nivkh, Ainu, Basques, Germanic peoples, Slavs, and Finns. There are also a number of deities from Celtic Gaul and Britain associated with the bear. The Dacians, Thracians, and Getians in the Eastern Balkans were noted to worship bears and annually celebrate the bear dance festival. The bear is featured on many totems throughout northern cultures that carve them. In an article in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, American folklorist Donald J. Ward noted that a story about a bear mating with a human woman, and producing a male heir, functions as an ancestor myth to peoples of the northern hemisphere, namely, from North America, Japan, China, Siberia and Northern Europe.” ref

“The existence of an ancient bear cult among Neanderthals in Western Eurasia in the Middle Paleolithic has been a subject of conjecture due to contentious archaeological findings. Evidence suggests that Neanderthals could have worshipped the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), and bear bones have been discovered in several cave sites across Western Eurasia. It was not just the presence of these bones, but their peculiar arrangement that intrigued archaeologists. During the excavation, on-site archaeologists determined that the bones were arranged in such a way that could only have resulted from hominin intervention rather than natural deposition processes. Emil Bächler, a proponent of the bear-cult hypothesis, found bear remains in Switzerland and at Morn Cave (Mornova zijalka) in Slovenia. Along with Bächler’s discovery, bear skulls were found by André Leroi-Gourhan arranged in a perfect circle in Saône-et-Loire. The discovery of patterns such as those found by Leroi-Gourhan suggests that these bear remains were placed in this arrangement intentionally, an act which can only be attributed to Neandertals due to the dating of the site and is interpreted as ritual.” ref

“While these findings have been taken to indicate an ancient bear-cult, other interpretations of remains have led others to conclude that the bear bones’ presence in these contexts are a natural phenomenon. Ina Wunn, based on the information archaeologists have about early hominins, contends that if Neandertals did worship bears there would be evidence of it in their settlements and camps. However, most bear remains have been found in caves. Many archaeologists now theorise that, since most bear species hibernate in caves during the winter, the presence of bear remains is not unusual in this context Bears which lived inside these caves perished from natural causes such as illness or starvation. Wunn argues that the placement of these remains is due to natural, post-deposition events such as wind, sediment, or water. Therefore, the assortment of bear remains in caves did not result from human activities Certain archaeologists, such as Emil Bächler, continue to use their excavations to support that an ancient bear cult did exist.” ref

There are annual bear festivals that take place in various towns and communes in the Pyrenees region of Spain and France. In Prats de Molló, the Festa de l’ós [ca; fr] (‘festival of the bear’; also known as dia dels óssos, ‘day of the bears’) held on Candlemas (February 2) is a ritual in which men dressed up as bears brandishing sticks terrorize people in the streets. Formerly, the festival centered on the “bears” mock-attacking the women and trying to blacken their breasts (with soot), which seemed scandalous to outside first-time observers. But according to the testimony of someone who remembered the olden days before that, the festival that at Prats de Molló involved elaborate staging, much like the version in Arles. The Arles version (Festa de l’os d’Arles [fr; ca]) involves a female character named Rosetta (Roseta) who gets abducted by the “bear”. Rosetta was traditionally played by a man or a boy dressed up as a girl. The “bear” would bring the Rosetta to a hut raised on the center square of town (where the victim would be fed sausages, cake, and white wine). The event finished with the “bear” being shaved and “killed”. There is also a similar festival in the town of Sant Llorenç de Cerdans: Festa de l’ós de Sant Llorenç de Cerdans [ca]. These three well-known festivals take place in towns located in Vallespir, and are known as «Festes de l’os al Vallespir» or «El dia de l’os/dels ossos» [fr; ca]. Andorra, in an entirely different Pyrenean valley, has some festivals dedicated to the she-bear, known collectively as Festes de l’ossa [ca]. These include the Ball de l’ossa [ca] (‘she-bear’s dance’) in Encamp, and Última ossa [ca] (‘the last she-bear’) in Ordino. There is also a bear related festival in the Valencian town of La Mata, named Festa de l’Onso de la Mata [ca].” ref

“The reverence for bears is a prevalent practice in Siberia. This spiritual engagement, often termed as “bear ceremony,” “bear festival,” or “bear dance,” reflects a shared connection to the natural world and the significance of bears within these societies. Some scholars argue that bear worship not only holds significant cultural and spiritual value but also played a foundational role in shaping subsequent religious practices among Siberian peoples. They suggest that the reverence for bears served as a precursor or perhaps even a catalyst for the development of more formalized rituals centered around reindeer. Some of the most notable Siberian indigenous peoples who practice bear worship include the following:

• Ob-Ugrians: Khanty and Mansi peoples in the Western Siberian taiga. Their present-day territory lies to the east of the Urals along the Ob River and its tributaries, from the Urals and a narrow belt of foothills to a vast central lowland that slopes gently to the Gulf of Ob.
• Tungusic peoples in Lower Amur region: Oroqen (Ulta), Ulch, and Oroch in the Russian Far Eastern regions of Sakhalin, Lower Amur, and the Maritime coast respectively.
• Other practitioners of bear worship in Siberia include the following indigenous peoples: Nivkh, Udege, Ainu.” ref

“Bear ceremonialism in Siberia varies by group, but central to these practices is the recognition of bear ceremonialism as a sacred undertaking, demanding adherence to established protocols and etiquette. In indigenous Siberian cultures, a fundamental tenet governing the relationship between humans and bears is the prohibition against hunting bears, except under specific circumstances. Bears are only pursued if they pose a direct threat to human life or property, such as in cases where they have caused harm or invaded dwellings. The traditional ceremony begins a few years before the sacrifice of the bear itself. The bear ceremony starts with a capture, whereby male hunters enter a forest to find a bear den, kill the mother bear and catch the bear cub to bring back to the indigenous encampment.” ref

“The people in the region then raise the bear cub as if the bear cub is one of the tribes’ own children. The duration of raising the bear varies between different cultures, but the process can take anywhere from one to five years, depending on the age at which the bear reaches sexual maturity, as well as the sex of the bear. In most cultures, female bears are raised for a shorter amount of time compared to the male bears that are captured by the indigenous peoples. (A note on the duration of raising the bear cub: As mentioned before, the duration by which villages would choose to raise the bear cub also varies culture by culture. For example, the people of Gvasyugi choose to raise the bear for one to two years. Similarly, the Ulch people of the Amur region opt for a longer period, typically three to four years, before they perform the ritual sacrifice. These differences in duration reflect the diverse traditions and customs found across different communities, shaping their respective approaches to this practice.)” ref

“The bear is raised in captivity in the encampment alongside the people’s animals and children. Usually, a family would raise the bear cub before sacrificing it, either within the confines of the family abode until the bear grew too big to be kept inside. According to one account of the Ulchi bear ceremony, “[the] bear slept with the dogs and came out to play and to be hand fed by the woman of the house”. There have also been records of the bear cubs sucking on female human milk, and indigenous families’ children are reprimanded when they express jealousy toward how bears are treated in the encampment. Once the bear becomes too large to be kept inside a cage with the family pets, it would be transferred to a special hut until it reached sexual maturity, or was considered ready to be sacrificed — the standards for this decision vary region by region, and, even within regions, culture by culture.” ref

“To prepare the bear for its sacrifice to the masters of the taiga, the people of the village may take different approaches depending on the culture. Importantly, bear ceremonialism is one of the few practices in indigenous cultures in Siberia that discourage and subvert the central role that shamans generally play in pagan societies in the northern hemisphere. This is particularly noted in bear ceremonialism practiced in the Amur region. Regarded as spiritual mediators between humans and spirits in Siberian cultures, the bear ceremony prohibits seances performed by shamans as this worship represents one of the few practices where humans are able to communicate directly with spirits without necessitating aid from a third party agent.” ref

“Before the sacrificial ritual, the people of the village generally invest a lot of effort into traditions that serve the purpose of “amusing” the bear. For example, some people would pour water on each other, or the men would wrestle one another in a show of strength in order to make the soon-to-be-sacrificed bear happy. Other means of entertaining the bear also include dog races and games. The purpose of amusing the bear is to ensure that the bear’s sendoff is pleasant, guaranteeing good fortune from the spirits following the bear’s later sacrifice.” ref

“In some societies, the bear is then taken from home to home of the village in order to say final goodbyes before the bear is guided to a location in the forest that is not too far away from the encampment (generally the location of the sacrifice is situated within a mile of the village encampment itself). During the sacrifice, it is crucial that the bear is shown respect. Some means of disrespecting the bear would include, for example, being barefoot or using a gun to shoot the bear. As such, the bear has to be killed with a bow and arrow, knife, or spear. Also equally important is the vocabulary used to describe the act of sacrificing the bear. It is common for indigenous peoples to use euphemisms such as “I obtained a child” to convey killing a bear, as using direct language can offend the sacred animal, as well as the gods and spirits presiding over the environment.” ref

“The bear is sacrificed with an injury to its heart, after which the people at the ceremony follow a ritual of skinning the animal, cooking it, and feasting on the bear meat. As a celebration following the sacrifice, many activities can take place. Children put on plays, women play musical instruments, and specific dances, myths, and songs are performed as part of the bear ceremony. Some scholarly records additionally indicate that the bear head is often separated from the rest of the body and used as a protective ornament in the home of the family hosting the celebratory feast. Meanwhile, the tongue is gifted to the eldest male of the village as a sign of respect in the culture.” ref

“Although most indigenous peoples generally follow the same rituals and practices in executing ceremonies for bear worship, some populations also adopt unique versions of the practice with different spiritual, cultural, and social implications across various regions.

• Ob-Ugrians: The Khanty and Mansi believe that the bear is a descendant from the supreme god Torum (also known as Num-Torum), whose children are sent to the earth as a means of surveilling and communicating with people inhabiting it. Importantly, Ob-Ugrians also believe that they have also descended from the god Torum, a belief that forms the basis of these peoples’ social relationship with bears, which is that of a patrilineal kinship. That is, the bear acts as a genetic ancestor to the Ob-Ugrians.
• Tungusic peoples of the Amur: On the other hand, indigenous peoples of the Amur seek to worship the bear not as an act of kinship, but as a means of reverence to their natural environment. When sacrificing the bear, the Tungusic peoples generally do it with the purpose of returning the bear to the masters of the taiga in order to ensure a plentiful and fruitful hunting season. Also importantly, the Evenkis, Nivkhs, and Orochon all believe that all other animals have descended from the bear. For example, when any other game is hunted and killed in the forest, this game would then be considered children of the bear. In this way, by honoring and sacrificing the bear through bear ceremonialism, these indigenous peoples then pay reverence to all animals inhabiting the forest and nature, ensuring fruitful seasons in all kinds of game to come.
• Evenkis: The Evenkis, by contrast, do not raise the bear before sacrificing it. Like the Ob-Ugrians, these indigenous people see the bear as an ancestor. When they hunt and kill the bear in its den, they must show it respect as well, by “addressing it in kinship terms and asking its forgiveness before preparing its carcass and portioning out the meat for the [bear] feast.” ref

“Bears were the most worshipped animals of Ancient Slavs. During pagan times, it was associated with the god Volos, the patron of domestic animals. Eastern Slavic folklore describes the bear as a totem personifying a male: father, husband, or a fiancé. Legends about turnskin bears appeared, and it was believed that humans could be turned into bears for misbehavior. As a pagan practice, tsarist Christianizing efforts often sought to suppress bear ceremonialism in Siberia due to it undermining Russian Orthodox hegemony at the time. Until the early 18th century, the Russian tsardom did not necessarily seek to propagate Christian Orthodoxy among indigenous Siberian populations. Native Siberian paganism was not perceived as a faith altogether up until this spiritual worldview began to be perceived as a threat to the legitimacy of the Russian Orthodox Church.” ref

“Similarly, Soviet control of the Russian state also led to repressive attitudes toward bear worship among indigenous Siberian peoples. Although religion was tolerated in theory, the socialist state sought to limit paganism as this practice was antithetical to the ideal of Marxist-Leninist atheism adopted as the official attitude toward religion and spiritualism more widely in the Soviet Union. Bear worship, and paganism more generally, was also perceived as a threat to Marxist-Leninist ideology with regards to humans’ relationship with their surrounding natural environment. According to Stephen Dudeck, an anthropologist specializing in indigenous Siberian cultures, “The opposition between the ideological place of nature as a force to be conquered according to Soviet ideology, and the complex and negotiated social relationship with the environment reflected in Indigenous rituals, should not have gone unnoticed (even if people like Steinitz might have ignored this). On a practical level feasting was blamed for distracting workers in the newly created state-controlled enterprises from disciplined work.” ref

“Indigenous Siberian populations have had a contentious relationship with the Russian state since the beginning of the colonial era. However, in the modern day, the sources of cultural contention have had economic implications as well. The act of raising a bear cub in a village is now deeply costly for the participants of the ceremony, for example. Meanwhile, bear hunting has led to conflicts between indigenous Siberian cultures and the Russian law as well. For instance, the Khanty have subsistence hunting rights in their traditional region, but the Russian legal framework imposes a heavy financial burden on this indigenous Siberian culture by mandating “expensive and difficult to procure individual species licenses for non-food hunting and trapping.” According to reports by Wiget and Balalaeva, recently, there have been records of Ob-Ugrians being arrested for hunting bears that have previously posed a dangerous threat to people in the village, which is a central pillar of “revenge on the bear.” The “revenge on the bear” constitutes one of the beliefs in bear worship, whereby bears are never to be hunted unless they harm the humans first. This practice is particularly characteristic of societies living in the Amur region of Siberia.” ref

“The financial burden on indigenous populations by the Russian Federation is additionally exacerbated by ecological deterioration. The ecological deterioration has been caused by the state’s exploitation of natural resources in Siberia, especially recently. Notably, the Russian oil and gas extraction industry has greatly undermined the state of bears’ natural habitats in the Siberian taiga, leading to the animals’ increased wandering into human villages and potentially attacking the inhabitants. Due to longstanding and deeply rooted custom, these inhabitants must then hunt and kill the trespassing bears. As a result, attacked inhabitants sometimes illegally practice acts of bear hunting due to the legal framework underlying this act within the borders of the Russian Federation. One member of the Khanty indigenous Siberian group remarks: “We protest the destruction of the natural environment in our area, which is turning into our own destruction. We understand that the country needs oil, but not at the expense of our lives! All local industrial works operate as if we weren’t here, as if our ancestors weren’t here, as if our existence were over. Where are the principles of government policy toward Native peoples?” ref

“Centuries-long state repression of cultural traditions and spiritualism has led to an overall decline in bear worship among indigenous populations in Siberia. Throughout the 20th century, bear ceremonialism in Siberia became a rarely observed phenomenon. The Ob-Ugrian intelligentsia began the revival process for bear worship in the 1980s and 1990s, when state repression measures of indigenous cultures had been relieved. Since then, the participation of tourists in Khanty bear ceremonies has also increased in the modern day. Bear ceremonialism has thus taken on an economic significance for indigenous subsistence in modern times as well as tourists would pay to see bear worship in action. Revival activities often come about through state support, as well as being televised through state-sponsored media channels. As a result of governmental support, bear worship across various cultures in the northern hemisphere has seemed to “account for both some convergence of forms and some variations…. especially okrugwide festival programs in Khanty-Mansiĭsk, probably accounts for the convergent use throughout the northern regions of festival shirts, decorated with rickrack, and felt hats, decorated with traditional symbols.” ref

Bear ceremonialism practiced among indigenous Siberian peoples holds a spiritual significance as this tradition is a manifestation of paganism in Russia. Believing that everything has a soul, bear worship thus represents a spiritual worldview, wherein humans are meant to live in harmony with the natural environment around them, rather than attempt to conquer it. Paganism promotes a relatively more egalitarian structure of existence, compared to the hierarchical one that lays the foundation for the modern extractive economy of the Russian Federation, which is based on oil and gas extraction, and previously, the politico-economic ideology of the Soviet Union. Although each culture has different myths associated with the origins of the practice. The Khanty, for example, believe that the bear represents some form of ancestral kinship with the indigenous peoples. Dudeck observes that: “The relationship between the Khanty and the bear is based on their likeness, and on how both are related in a hierarchical relationship with the heavenly father and are linked with each other in a relationship of respect and reciprocity.” ref

Tutelary Deities

“A tutelary is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety, and thus of guardianship. Chinese folk religion, both past and present, includes a myriad of tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals may become deified after death.  In Hinduism, tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata and Kuldevi or Kuldevta. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. In Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Thai provincial capitals have tutelary city pillars and palladiums. The guardian spirit of a house is known as Chao Thi or Phra Phum. Almost every Buddhist household in Thailand has a miniature shrine housing this tutelary deity, known as a spirit house. And in Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity.” ref

Grandmother-Mother Ancestor Spirits

“Ancestor worship is perhaps the world’s oldest religion. Some anthropologists theorize that it grew out of belief in some societies that dead people still exist in some form because they appear in dreams. Ancestor worship involves the belief that the dead live on as spirits and that it is the responsibility of their family members and descendants to make sure that they are well taken care of. If they are not they may come back and cause trouble to the family members and descendants that have ignored or disrespected them. Unhappy dead ancestors are greatly feared and every effort is made to make sure they are comfortable in the afterlife. Accidents and illnesses are often attributed to deeds performed by the dead and cures are often attempts to placate them.” ref

“In some societies, people go out of their way to be nice to one another, especially older people, out of fear of the nasty things they might do when they die. Ancestor worship is found in many forms in cultures throughout the world, Veneration of ancestors is regarded as a means through which an individual can assure his or her own immortality. Children are valued because they could provide for the spirits of their parents after death. Family members who remained together and venerated their forebears with strict adherence to prescribed ritual find comfort in the belief that the souls of their ancestors are receiving proper spiritual nourishment and that they are insuring their own soul’s nourishment after death.” ref  

Cultic Hunting at Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”

Cosmic Hunt mythology motif of Northern Eurasia and the Americas yet absent in other parts of the World