According to an article posted in Discovery News on April 26, 2011, there is a new study being done on cave bears that is being published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. This article may also show us some insight into cave art and why cave bears eventually went extinct in a couple French caves. The most fascinating part of this article is the fact that archaeologists found that since paleolithic humans often killed large animals during their hunts, so naturally they killed cave bears. Especially when it came to killing the bears for shelter. The archeologists did radiocarbon dating, DNA testing and isotope investigations which showed that bears inhabited caves all by themselves until about 30,000 years ago when humans moved in. The research also showed that the cave bear population started to decline about the same time that modern humans arrived in Europe. However, this only shows a very strong correlation; not necessarily causation. Also, it shows that the cave drawings came from 1,000's of years ago because it's pretty impossible to draw things that no longer exist in the present times.
I think this is a really cool and interesting discovery for archaeology because if more discoveries like this are found then these things could possibly explain why other extinctions happened and things like cave drawings/art.
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