According to a new study, Stone Age humans may have hunted Eurasian cave lions (Panthera leo spelaea) for their pelts, perhaps contributing to their extinction.
Cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea) by Heinrich Harder, 1920.
The Eurasian cave lion is an extinct subspecies of lion that lived on the Eurasian continent during the Pleistocene epoch.
This subspecies first appeared during the Middle Pleistocene about 400,000 years ago and became extinct 14,500-14,000 years ago, but the reasons for its disappearance are not clear.
It had a head-body length of around 7 feet (2.1 m) and a shoulder height of 3.9 feet (1.2 m) — about 5-10% bigger than the modern lion and smaller than the earlier cave lion Panthera fossilis.
The animal is known from prehistoric cave paintings, ivory carvings, and clay figurines.
Cave lions painted in the Chauvet Cave, France.
Late Stone Age (Upper Paleolithic) humans were previously known to have hunted other small and large carnivores, but archaeological evidence of cave lion hunting is sparse.
To help fill in this gap, Dr. Marián Cueto from the Universidad de Cantabria in Spain and colleagues examined nine fossilized toe bones of cave lions from the Upper Paleolithic site of La Garma Cave (Cantabria, Spain) for evidence of exploitation by humans.
The researchers found that most bones showed signs of having been modified by humans using stone tools, with a technique similar to that used by modern hunters when skinning prey to keep the claws attached to the fur.
The team suggests that the toe bones may therefore have been part of a single lion pelt, which possibly lay on the floor of the occupied cave.
A British Pleistocene landscape during an interglacial with cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea), straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), narrow-nosed rhinoceros (Stephanorhinus hemitoechus), steppe bison (Bison priscus), aurochs (Bison primigenius) and hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius). Image credit: Roman Uchytel, via the Netherlands Institute of Ecology.
La Garma Cave is known to have been associated with human rituals, and cave lions may have been symbolic animals for Stone Age humans.
“While the analysis is not definitive evidence that humans exploited cave lions for their pelts, human hunting of cave lions, perhaps as part of ritual activities, might have been a factor in cave lion extinction,” Dr. Cueto and co-authors said.
The research appears today in the journal PLoS ONE.
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M. Cueto et al. 2016. Under the Skin of a Lion: Unique Evidence of Upper Paleolithic Exploitation and Use of Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea) from the Lower Gallery of La Garma (Spain). PLoS ONE 11 (10): e0163591; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0163591
