Stranger Among Bears
                     
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 The First Grizzlies
Timeline: Prehistory
From Native American origin stories to European persecution, trace the story of humankind's love-hate relationship with the grizzly bear.
The story of the grizzly bear begins in the treetops of Asia some 34 million years ago. There, a dog-sized predator known as Cephalogale first appeared. This earliest ancestor of bears gave way to the "dawn bear," a small, arboreal hunter with teeth designed for grinding vegetation.
A more grizzly-like bear made its appearance in Europe some 5 million years ago in the form of the Etruscan bear, the earliest known member of the genus Ursus, which includes the grizzly. The Etruscan bear was carnivorous, but its large and flat teeth indicate a diet that relied heavily on vegetation.
Around 1.3 million years ago, the brown bear, Ursus arctos, appeared in China. A successful opportunist, it spread quickly across the continent into Europe and northern Africa. It reached the Americas during one of the early ice ages, traveling across the Bering Land Bridge at least 200,000 years ago. Back then, the short-faced bear — the largest bear that ever lived — roamed the continent. But it and many other bear species went extinct shortly after the brown bear arrived.
Over time, America's brown bear developed distinctive characteristics and became what we know today as the grizzly bear, or Ursus arctos horribilis. Tens of thousands of years later, grizzlies were joined in North America by the earliest human migrants to the Pacific Northwest. The special relationship between these Native American tribes and the grizzly bear would give rise to a number of origin myths and legends, far more imaginative than scientific explanation...
NEXT: Grandfather Grizzly »
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