Ancient DNA documents the presence of an extinct lineage of European bison in Western Europe

Among the bovids occurring in Europe during the Late Pleistocene, the aurochs (Bos primigenius), the steppe bison (Bison priscus) and the European bison (Bison bonasus) went extinct in the wild. To trace and understand their population decline, species identification of archaeological bones is essential, but, when diagnostic morphological characters are insufficient, ancient DNA can be a powerful tool to document past biodiversity. To document the population decline of bovids during the Late Pleistocene - Holocene transition, we analysed the ancient DNA of two bovid bone fragments, collected in Belgium and dated to 14.93-14.31 ka cal. BP and 11.97-11.76 ka cal. BP. Shotgun sequencing of the two samples yielded 25.5% and 0.1% of endogenous DNA, with average lengths of 53 and 50 bp and covered more than 90% and 15% of the mitochondrial genome, respectively. Resulting mtDNA haplotypes of both samples matched a lineage of European Bison that went extinct in the early Holocene (ca. 9 ka) and that diverged ca. 97 ka from the lineage including extant European bison. Based on current knowledge, the extinct bison lineage contracted in range while expanding northwards into Scandinavia at the end of the Pleistocene before its extinction. These results reveal the presence of the extinct lineage at more southern latitudes than expected during its decline 14-11 ka ago.

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