Cave with cave bear footprints found in Spain

Cave with cave bear footprints found in Spain



Researchers have found in a cave system in southeast Spain a huge cave, closed for thousands of years, hung with huge stalactites. On its walls, deep claw marks of long-extinct cave bears have been preserved.

The find was made in Cueva del Arco, a group of caves in the Almaden Gorge near the Murcian city of Ciesa. Although evidence of 50,000-year-old settlements has already been found at the site, making it one of the few sites in the eastern Iberian Peninsula where the transition from Neanderthals to modern humans can be documented, experts who excavated there suspected that there were and other discoveries.

Careful excavations unearthed an air vent.

“We are facing a world-class opening,” the team said in a statement. “The new cave halls were huge, some of them 20 meters high, making them the highest in the region. Its stalactites were three meters long and one centimeter wide, which means that they grew in conditions of almost unparalleled stability due to the isolation of the cave for many millennia.

Footprints on the walls suggest that cave bears, which became extinct around 24,000 years ago, may have lived further south on the peninsula than previously thought.

“The identification of cave bear claw marks on many sections of the walls makes the cave a prime and truly unique example of where these huge mammals lived in Southern Europe,” the statement said.

Martin Lerma, the project's scientific director, said the find "exceeded all our expectations," adding: "It opens a new door to history."

While the discovery of such a large untouched cave may attract researchers and tourists to the region, Martin Lerma urged people to give the experts time to complete their research. “We must remember that what we hold in our hands is an untouched natural treasure and must remain so.”



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