Roughly 28,000 years ago, a teenage boy was carefully buried in a cave in what is now northern Italy, wearing an exquisite shell hat and holding a flint blade in his right hand. Archaeologists have now determined that his cause of death was a bear attack.
“It probably lost consciousness during the event and never regained consciousness,” bioarchaeologist Vitale Sparacero of the University of Cagliari in Sardinia told Live Science in an email. “We know that these people were hunting bears, and that bears tend to avoid humans as much as possible, but it’s still possible to run into them by accident.”
To solve the mysteries of CSI: Stone Age, Sparacero and his colleagues examined the boy’s skeletal remains (originally excavated in Liguria’s Arene Candido cave in 1942 and nicknamed “Il Principe”) for microscopic clues to his untimely death. They published their findings in December in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences.
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When the prince was discovered more than 80 years ago, excavators immediately suspected that he had suffered significant trauma around the time of his death, due to extensive damage to his left shoulder, neck, and lower jaw bones. However, no official analysis of the skeleton was published, and the prince’s remains were reassembled, glued together and displayed at the Ligurian Archaeological Museum shortly after World War II.
Recently, researchers received permission from the museum to remove bones from the exhibit one by one so they could be viewed under magnification. They also took photos of some of the bones and created 3D surface models.
After careful analysis of the images, researchers concluded that the young teenage collector had sustained significant trauma to his shoulders and face around the time of his death, as suggested by the original excavators. However, their analysis also revealed damage indicative of bear attacks.
The linear mark on the left side of the boy’s skull was located under the shell lid and was 0.4 inches (10 millimeters) long. It occurs around the time of his death, and its shape matches that of a swipe with a claw. Researchers then discovered a teardrop-shaped indentation on the boy’s right ankle, which also appeared around the time of his death and was caused by a cone-shaped object, such as a tooth.
“Overall, given the nature and pattern of the most obvious lesions, they paint a realistic scenario for fatal injury by large carnivores,” the researchers wrote in the study. Given the animals and injury patterns commonly seen at Late Pleistocene sites in Italy, it is likely that the prince was attacked by either a brown bear (Ursus arctos) or the now extinct cave bear (Ursus spelaeus).
Microscopic evidence of bone healing revealed that the prince had indeed survived up to three days after the initial attack. “Given the extent of bone damage, it is surprising that this young forager survived even for a short period of time,” the researchers wrote. The bone-shattering bite or blow to his leg “must have accidentally escaped a major blood vessel,” the researchers wrote, and his “death could have occurred from secondary brain injury, internal bleeding, or multiple organ failure.”
Because the boy didn’t die right away, “it’s likely that he wasn’t alone because he was treated right away,” Spaccello said. But he says he can only speculate about what the group was doing. “It’s impossible to know whether they were out hunting or collecting plants.”
The Prince is the oldest burial found in the Arenes Candide cave. He died approximately 28,000 to 27,400 years ago at the age of 14 to 17. His compatriots buried him on a bed of red ocher, wearing a headdress made of shells with hundreds of holes and deer teeth, along with some ivory pendants and a blade made of flint imported from southern France. Large chunks of ocher were located in the area between the injured shoulder, neck and jaw.
There’s no doubt that ancient hunter-gatherers were aware of potentially dangerous animals, but the prince’s prolonged suffering from the violent attack may have shaken his small community. “The lavish formal burial granted to Principe may reflect the need for ritual recognition of an exceptionally negative event,” the researchers wrote.
The research team hopes to continue their research on the prince. “In the future, we may test tooth enamel for amelogenin. [to determine biological sex] Alternatively, a complete genetic study is needed, but destructive analyzes should be used sparingly for these exceptional remains,” Spaccello said.
Sparacello, V. S., Dori, I., Radi, N., et al. (2025). New skeletal trauma marks on the Upper Paleolithic Principe, excavated from the Arene Candido cave in Liguria, Italy, have provided new insight into the circumstances of his death. Anthropology Scientific Reports, 103, 113-139. doi 10.4436/JASS.10303
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