'Most gruesome bear mauling in history' left teenage caveman ripped to shreds
A teenage caveman was ripped to shreds in one of the most gruesome bear attacks in history- and one of the first ever recorded.
Thought to be just 15, a boy who became known as “il Principe” or “the Prince” went out scavenging for food 27,000 years ago. Little did he know this would be thelast thing he ever did.
Thousands of years later, in 1940, archeologists found his battered and broken skeleton in modern day Italy in the Arene Candide Cave near Genoa, according to Preistoria Italia.
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Half the jawbone and half the left clavicle are missing, the remaining jawbone and shoulder are hurt, the skull and neck are fractured andthe fibula has a puncture mark.
Researchers said the most likely cause of his death was a mauling by a bear. The boy was nicknamed the Prince due to his lavish burial, with the Journal of Anthropological Sciences explaining the skeleton’s mutilations were due to a large carnivore.
It said: “Given the overall traumatic pattern, a bear attack … remains the most plausible explanation,” the researchers write. They posit the attacker was either a brown bear or a now-extinct cave bear.”
Lead study author Vitale Stefano Sparacello said: “We know that these people hunted bears, and that bears tend to avoid humans whenever they can, but a fortuitous encounter is still possible.”
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The University of Cagliari scientist told Live Science the Prince is not the first body they have found in the cave network.
The Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers used the caves as a necropolis for thousands of years. The bones of the Prince, were radiocarbon-dated to between about 27,300 and 27,900 years ago. This is the oldest burial of any found in the area.
The boy’s body was laid in a bed of red ochre, clothed in a headdress made of deer teeth and hundreds of shells. He was buried with ivory pendants, carved antlers and a long flint blade.
Sparacello said: “He was probably a budding hunter still learning his skills when [the attack] happened. Tragically, it is thought the bear merely saw the boy as a menace to eliminate and he was probably killed by a mostly vegetarian bear - who did not eat him.
Even more horrifically, researchers think the Prince survived for two or three days after the attack.
Sparacello and his co-authors found microscopic evidence of healing on some of the damaged bones. The healing abilities of these particular bones, as well as the speedy healing abilities of adolescents, suggest the boy’s body had begun to repair itself by the time he died.
Sparacello added: “He probably lost consciousness during the event and never regained it. Most likely the adolescent was not alone, because he was cared for immediately.”
The researchers write that given the violence of the bear attack, “it is surprising that this adolescent forager survived even for this brief time.”
The animal must not have severed any of the boy’s major veins or arteries, leaving him to die of a “secondary brain injury, internal hemorrhage or multiple organ failure.”
Sparacello said: “It is possible that in the future we will do an amelogenin test on the dental enamel [to determine biological sex] or a full genetic study, but destructive analysis has to be done sparingly on these exceptional remains.
Though the Prince was only between 14 and 16 years old, judging by his burial he was an important member of society. The other explanation is that he was given a special burial in an attempt to prevent a further incident like the Prince’s.
Anthropologist Lawrence Straus said: “This is a glimpse into the humanity of those who lived during the last ice age.”