The research project proposes an interdisciplinary approach including palaeogenomics, ancient epigenomics and palaeoecology to address the issue whether changes in palaeoecology of Late Pleistocene cave bears represent evolutionary processes or are instead a result of environmentally induced plasticity. This dataset will constitute the most complete cave bear genome dataset ever analysed, allowing us to gain an unprecedented understanding of cave bear evolutionary history and moving forward the field of evolutionary epigenomics.