In the early/middle Late Pleistocene, when the small cave bears U. s.
eremus/spelaeus Rabeder et al. 2004 used a part of the Sophie’s Cave as den, different
large and small carnivors were mainly cave dwellers or short-time occupants. With the
beginning of the Late Pleistocene glacial period (113.000 BP, terrace elevation 415 m
a.s.l.), Ice Age wolves used one area in the cave as a den at the end of the Bear`s
Passage. Canis lupus spelaeus Goldfuss 1823 being represented only by grown up
animal bones left larger amounts of phosphatic excrements in the cave bear bonebed
especially in the Bear’s Passage, but up to the Millionary Hall. A high percentage of
about 26% of the cave bear bones have large predator bite damages. Mainly Ice Age
wolves and Ice Age spotted hyenas scavenged the small cave bear subspecies carcasses.
They produced larger bite damages on the vertebral column (inner side) proving an
initial intestine/inner organ feeding. Steppe lions hunted cave bears even deeper in the
cave where cave bears hibernated, whereas this can not be proven, only indirectly on
large canine bite marks, which also might have resulted from those felids. Some cave
area (also especially Bear’s Passage) was used as a weasel Mustela erminea Linnaeus
1758 den, whereas the Ice Age porcupine Hystrix (Acanthion) brachyura Linnaeus
1758 dwelling is proven indirectly again only in the Bear’s Passage with typical large
rodent bite marks on two cave bear cub humeri. At the end of the middle Late
Pleistocene, the former still unknown Bear’s Passage entrance was blocked, which did
not allow the smaller cave bears, carnivores or porcupines to penetrate the cave
anymore, all inhabited/dwelled only a cave branch between approx. 113.000-32.000
BP.
Keywords: Late Pleistocene, sedimentology, Ailsbach Valley geomorphology,
cave bear species/subspecies, cave bear clock, cave bear den, hibernation nests.
