I'm currently reading a book about the bear and its symbolic meaning in western culture, from the Paleolithic until the modern era. The author suggests that although many archaeologists deny the existence of a Paleolithic bear cult, the discovery of symbolically arranged bear remains in caves, widespread cave paintings of bears in numerous poses and portable art featuring bears or made from their bodies indicate that such a cult probably did exist.
The author then describes commonalities between bear-deities and veneration of the bear by Celtic, Germanic, Slavic and Baltic peoples. He seems to implicitly argue that these traditions were survivals from an ancient and pre-historic bear cult. I don't know enough about pre-history to formulate my own opinion about the former argument, but the latter seems pretty speculative and unlikely.
So, can any archaeologist or pre-historian help me out here? Is there convincing evidence for a pre-historic bear cult? Am I right in thinking that it is incredibly unlikely that veneration of the bear continued from the Paleolithic until the High Middle Ages?
The idea of a circumpolar bear cult was given early expression by Irving Hallowell, Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere. American Anthropologist 28, 1926. See this site, for example. One needs to be careful about interpreting nineteenth-century and twentieth-century ethnographic evidence of an expansive tradition as evidence of something that was Upper Paleolithic. But it is impressive that northern groups of Native Americans other than New World Artic indigenous people (who tend to travel and communicate with their Old World counterparts) have bear cults that look a lot like Northern Eurasian traditions. It is tempting to conclude that these bear cults were established before Native American colonization of the Americas and that remnants of this tradition survived into ethnographic times. But tempting is not evidence. Still, when we see echoes of the same motifs in Shoshone/Northern Paiute culture, in the Ainu culture, and in Sami tradition, as well as in the story of Bjarki in the court of King Hrolf (not to mention Grettir the strong, Beowulf, and Tale Type 301, the folktale of the Bear's Son), the temptation becomes considerable. Still, it is not proof.
edit to clean up something.
I hope that helps.