Bear Cult

Bear worship (also known as the bear cult or arctolatry) is the religious practice of the worshiping of bears found in many North Eurasian and North American ethnic religions such as the Sami, Nivkh, Ainu, and pre-Christian Basques and Finns. There are also a number of deities from Celtic Gaul and Britain associated with the bear, and the Dacians, Thracians, and Getians were noted to worship bears and annually celebrate the bear dance festival. The bear is featured on many totems throughout northern cultures that carve them. Bear worship may have been practiced as far back as the palaeolithic period amongst Neanderthal societies.

The existence of an ancient bear cult among Neanderthals in Western Eurasia in the middle paleolithic period has been a topic of discussion spurred by archaeological findings. Ancient bear bones have been discovered in several different caves and are believed by some archaeologists to be evidence of a bear cult during the paleolithic era. It was not the mere presence of these bones that intrigued archaeologists, but their peculiar arrangement. Upon excavation, archaeologists on site determined that the bones were found arranged in such a way that it was not naturally possible. Emil Bächler, a main supporter of the argument for the presence of an ancient bear cult, found bear remains in Switzerland and at Mornova Cave in Slovenia. Along with Bächler’s discovery, bear skulls were found by André Leroi-Gourhan arranged in a perfect circle in Saône-et-Loire. The discovery of designs such as those found by Leroi-Gourhan suggests that these bear remains were placed in their arrangement intentionally; an act which has been attributed to H. neanderthalensis and is assumed to have been a part of some sort of ceremony.

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