3D CAVE BEARS: THE SKULL OF U. DENINGERI AND U. SPELAEUS FROM VENETO REGION (NORTH ITALY)

Cave bears are characterized by a complicated phyletic tree and more species have been recently individuated: Ursus deningeri Von Reichenau, 1906, U. spelaeus Rosenmüller, 1794, U. ladinicus Rabeder et al., 2004, U. ingressus Rabeder et al., 2004 and U. eremus Rabeder et al., 2004. Others species are identified in the Urals caves and a part of Asia. It is particularly difficult to divide U. deningeri from U. spelaeus. Beyond the traditional methods (morphometry, morphology) using the “Structure from Motion” or “sfm” technique, a 3D analysis on the U. deningeri and U. spelaeus skulls from Grotta del Cerè and Covoli di Velo (Verona), has been elaborated to better distinguish the two species of cave bears. The digitization of the skulls is a tool that minimizes the damage to the fossils and allows great virtual handling. “Sfm” reconstructs the object form with the automatic collimation of points from different photos, crossed the recognizable points on more pictures and finds their spatial coordinates. It builds a point clouds with the same colour forming a solid photo of the object. then “Sfm” may superimpose a photo texture, extracted from the initial photos, thus creating a three-dimensional model of the objects. A series of both morphometric measures and several sections of the skulls, are also useful to differentiate between the two species of cave bears.