New study questions when the brown bear became extinct in Britain

PA 143/18 New research provides insights into the extinction of Britain's largest native carnivore. The study - ' The Presence of the brown bear in Holocene Britain: a review of the evidence' published in Mammal Review - is the first of its kind to collate and evaluate the evidence for the brown bear in post-Ice Age Britain. Previous research has failed to establish when the brown bear became extinct, and whether or not remains that have been found are of wild native bears or of bears that have been imported from overseas. There is also little evidence to determine why the bear became extinct on British shores. The author of the paper, Dr Hannah O'Regan from the Department of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Nottingham, says: "The brown bear was Britain's largest carnivore, yet we know surprisingly little about its history, both as a wild animal and in its relation to humans. "There has never been a comprehensive review of the evidence of brown bears in Britain, and I believe what we are looking at could show that they were sadly killed off earlier than we previously thought." Dr O'Regan has examined the location of the sites where materials have previously been found, the dating evidence and the body parts present, to determine when the bear became extinct and where it was imported from other countries. "Previous extinction evidence is unclear and I would suggest two scenarios should be considered - that they became extinct in the late Neolithic or Bronze Age, or, in the early medieval period.