Background

History does not record why or how the scholar Erik Laxman was drawn to the very isolated Nizhneudinskaya Cave in 1788, nor why he prepared a map of it. Located in the rugged foothills of the eastern Sayany Mountains, 264 m above the steep right bank of the Uda River, the cave is at 54°28'30" N, 98°58'48" E, approximately 50 km south ofthe town of Nizhneudinsk (the source of the cave’s name). The town is located on the old east-west road that first crossed all Siberia, its paved modern counterpart, and the Trans-Siberian railway about half way between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, the distance between which is 1050 km (630 miles). We mention these details to emphasize how very remote the cave was in 1788. In 1875 the paleontologist I. D. Chersky (1876) made a small excavation in the cave and recovered several bones of Pleistocene mammals. A distinctive feature of his assemblage was the retention of soft tissue on some bones - and even pieces of mummified rhinoceros skin - due to the dryness and low temperature of the cave. Unfortunately, his collection was destroyed by fire before it could be described when the wooden building that housed the Irkutsk Museum burned down in 1879. Nizhneudinskaya Cave was revisited in 1930 and 1980 by Moscow paleontologists M. G. Prokhorov, E. A. Belyaeva, and V. S. Slodkevich (1936), and the Irkutsk geologist, V. M. Filippov. The cave has two main areas (Malaya Nizhneudinskaya and a branch called Devil’s Hole that is a natural trap) and two major strata: a lower one that consists ofdense layered clay sediments devoid of organic inclusions; and an upper one that was rich in Pleistocene mammalian remains. Nizhneudinskaya is strictly a paleontological site, as no evidence of human use has been reported by any of its investigators (Melkheyev 1965).

The largest number of bones collected in the cave belonged to brown bears. Chersky calculated that he had bones of no fewer than 50 individual bears. In 1930 at least 28 more individuals were added to the list. Other species that have been identified include: hare (Lepus timidus), gray wolf (Canis lupus), fox (Vulpes vulpes), red wolf (Cuon alpinus), wolverine (Gulo gulo), sable (Martis zibellina), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), saiga (Saiga tatarica), goat, ibex, and markhor (Capra siberica). Mummification followed the death of a wolverine and a sable. There are, in addition, remains of northern pika, shrew-mouse, voles, and bats - all of which, like the two mummies, probably died of natural deaths in the cave.

In the central part of the Uda River basin there seems to have been in late Pleistocene times a large bear population, or so it would seem from the number found in

Nizhneudinskaya Cave, whose deaths may have resulted from competition for hibernation sites and other causes (Ovodov 1970, 1977a). Conflict or cannibalism is reflected in carnivore damage to several of the disarticulated bear limb bones and lower jaws. It is puzzling as to why so many bears were attracted to the cave, since its temperature is always below freezing, while other caves in the area explored by the above scientists have above-freezing temperatures but lack bear remains.