Hunting Small Cave Bear (Ursus rossicus) in the Southern Urals in the Middle Palaeolithic

The paper deals with some finds from the Imanai cave in Bashkiria, Southern Ural, which provide evidence of cave bear hunting by the Middle Palaeolithic inhabitants of the region. The excavations conducted in 2015–2016 yielded a small cave bear (Ursus rossicus) cranium with a hole in the right temporal bone. Judging by its morphology and the absence of bone regeneration traces, the hole resulted from a perimortem injury. The only direct radiocarbon date suggests that the animal died at least 40 kya. A small collection of stone tools, found in one layer with the skull, consists of several foliated points and two asymmetrical bifacial backed knives and could therefore be classified as a Micoquian industry. The main part of the paper addresses the results of use-wear and experimental studies, which confirm the hypothesis that a stone-tipped spear induced the wound that caused the death, and that the spearhead was similar to those present in the archaeological collection. There are also grounds to think that the bear was killed during hibernation.