I guess I’m slow because I can’t understand how dating the bear bones can tell you how old the footprints are. Even if you can date the material in which the footprint exists it still doesn’t tell you when the print was made. Just wondering.
The question I have is whether the bear bones show these bare-footed folks were contesting ownership of the cave with cave bears—and winning.
Before RC dating, stratigraphy was used exclusively. Since the bear bones were immediately below, using RC dating on the bones dates the strata in which they’re found, and the millimeters of debris on top of them is likely to have accumulated in a short period of time — not the over 10000 years that represents the difference between the old estimate and this RC date.