What Skull is This?

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During our club spring bear hunt the kids found this skull:

Most of the nasal bones/cartilage are gone, but teeth are in pretty good shape.
Judging by the thumb this thing is about 5″ long.

So, what is it? Given that it was a spring *bear* hunt the obvious guess was bear, except it’s kind of small.

Here are some pics of a bear skull from a mid-sized sow I got a few years ago:

There are a lot of obvious similarities. The sow was probably about a 5 1/2 bear.

Our speculation? The skull the kids found was that of a black bear cub. Cause of death? Who knows?

What do you think?