Giant short-faced bear skulls found in Yucatan

Adam Khor

For some reason this just got to the headlines despite the discovery having been made last year.

http://paleorama.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/video-inah-halla-restos-de-osos-de-hace-12-mil-anos-en-cenote-proximos-a-craneos-humanos/

Basically, four skulls (and some jaws and long bones) belonging to giant short-faced bears were found in a cenote (underwater caves considered sacred by the Maya, and often studied by archaeologists as the Maya would throw in human sacrifices to Chaac, the god of rain).

At first, they thought the skulls had belonged to jaguars, but they were too large and when examined, they were found to be bear skulls- a surprise, as bears are no longer found in the area (the only bear that still lives in Mexico is the American black bear and lives in the central and northern states only).
Eventually the skulls were identified as belonging to Arctotherium, the so called South American Short Faced Bear- recently made relatively famous thanks to some truly colossal remains found in Argentina.
Two paleontologists, however, believe that the remains may actually belong to Arctodus (fossils of which have been found in other parts of Mexico).

Human remains were also found in the cenote, close to the bears, and since they lack the skull deformations seen in most Maya skeletons, scientists believe they may be from an earlier time- probably the same as the giant bears.
The cenote was a dry cave 11.000 years ago, and was either used as a den by the bears (some of which were very young when they died) or else the animals fell there by accident.