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“Since the turn of the millennium, bones of the creatures in the Kinsey archives have been carbon dated in separate studies, and both found to have been from animals alive in the early medieval period. In the lynx’s case, this was about 2,500 years closer to the present than previously dated remains, a find that has given weight to current calls for reintroduction. The bear bone is the latest wild specimen found in Britain by a margin of around 1,500 years (although, as a recent University of Nottingham paper has pointed out, it could also be from a descendant of bears imported by the Romans rather than a ‘native’ animal). No serious calls are being made for the brown bear’s reintroduction, but on the Kinsey evidence, its presence here could be at least as recent as the lynx.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/01/country-diary-cave-secrets-of-lost-charismatic-carnivores

Country diary: cave secrets of lost charismatic carnivoresKinsey Cave, Yorkshire Dales: Bones of brown bear and lynx found here have rewritten the histories of both species