A press release issued yesterday (23 January 2018) by the University of Stavanger tells the story of decades of work on the most complete ancient polar bear skeleton in the world, found in 1976 in southern Norway, that culminated in an articulated museum display. This specimen was described in my research paper, Annotated Map of Ancient Polar Bear Remains of the World (Crockford 2012), which shows how many very early Holocene remains have been found outside current polar bear range.
Comments Off on Early Holocene polar bear skeleton from Norway vs. other ancient remains
Posted in Evolution, History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged ancient, archaeology, bones, fossils, geology, Holocene, ice age, Norway, polar bears, range, sea ice, skeleton, Younger Dryas
I came across a story in the news yesterday about the discovery of an archaeological site in northeastern Manitoba that brings to mind a post I wrote back in November 2012 on the geological and archaeological history of Hudson Bay.
As I noted then, most of the archaeological sites found on or near the coast of Hudson Bay are about 1,000 years old or less – and this new site fits that pattern perfectly.
A news report at the CBC (June 30, 2014) carried this description of the find, at a site called Hubbard Point, which sounds like it could yield polar bear remains: Continue reading
Comments Off on How long have polar bears – and people – lived around Hudson Bay?
Posted in History
Tagged archaeological site, archaeology, bones, history, Hudson Bay, Inuit, Manitoba, polar bear, tent rings, Virginia Petch, western hudson bay
How does the ancient distribution of polar bears – based on finds of natural-death remains (“fossils”) and bones found in archaeological sites – compare to the modern distribution of polar bears?
I have pulled together information from all of the reports I could find that listed ancient polar bear remains and summarized them into one table and one map. A low resolution copy of the map and a simplified version of the map notes are embedded in this post but a higher resolution version of the map and map notes (with pertinent details, including references) is available as a pdf. This document has been assigned an ISBN number (which means it is copyrighted and filed at Library and Archives Canada). The pdf can be downloaded below and will also be available on the PolarBearScience “references” page.
DOWNLOAD HERE: Ancient Polar Bear Remains_Crockford 2012
[small error fixed in yesterday’s version]
CITATION HERE:
Crockford, S.J. 2012. Annotated Map of Ancient Polar Bear Remains of the World. Electronic resource available at http://polarbearscience/references ISBN 978-0-9917966-0-1.
See map notes on pdf below for more details. Click to enlarge.
Comments Off on Ancient Polar Bear Remains of the World
Posted in Evolution, Sea ice habitat
Tagged archaeological, bones, fossil record, Pleistocene, polar bear history, sea ice extent
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