What fascinates me about Ursa Major is that while it doesn't look much like a modern bear (which have longer faces and shorter legs), it does look a lot like the ice age short-faced bear which had extremely long (for a bear) legs. The earliest humans in North America were ice age hunters. Is it possible that the bear tradition for the constellation is rooted in the experiences of those first inhabitants, and passed down by oral tradition? Similarly the widespread "Thunderbird" archetype could have origins in the oral traditions dating back to the ice age. In North America at the end of the ice age there were two varieties of enormous predatory birds - Aiolornis and Teratornis, The former was the largest (and rarest in the fossil record) being 40% larger than the latter. Teratornis had an average wingspan of 10-12 feet and a body weight of about 30 pounds. Figure 140% of that bird! That would make quite a shadow passing over.

(Of course, that wouldn't explain why Europeans recognized the constellation as a bear. There were no Arctodus Simi (short faced bears) in Europe during the ice age.)

It's also very difficult to link modern Native American nations/tribes to the first inhabitants. Like people elsewhere, they participated in many waves of migration. In the southwest, for example, where some of the earliest spears points are found (Clovis, NM), you have very culturally and chronologically distinct groups of Native Americans. The dominant groups (Utes, Navajos, Apaches, etc.) are relatively new arrivals to that region. Their culture and language links them to groups that migrated south from the Arctic circle and Canada. The ancient masonry ruins, pit houses and rock art in the region ascribed to various groups (Anasazi, Mogollon, Mimbres, Sinagua, Fremont, etc.) predates those groups by a very long time. Most anthropologists accept that the modern day puebloans like the Zuni, Acoma and Hopi, are descended from some of the more ancient groups, but the modern puebloans do not share a uniform culture or language. The Zuni in particular have a very unique language that is unconnected to other linguistic groups in the region.

I wonder which of the modern groups residing in the southwest, if any, actually descended from the ice age hunters in the region?

Regards,

Jim