CAVE ART PROVIDES A CONFIRMATION OF A HYBRID BISON SPECIES IN PALEOLITHIC EUROPE:

Male European bison, Poland.

Rafal Kowalczyk.

European bison, Poland.

Rafal Kowalczyk.

From time to time we hear discussion of the possibility of using cave paintings and other rock art to add to scientific knowledge by identifying animals by species for a given time period and/or location. We now may have an example of just that. Writing in Smithsonian.com of October 19, 2016, Jason Daley reported on a paper from Science by Jessica Boddy that announces that genetic testing, confirmed by cave art, has discovered an unknown species of European bison. Named the "Higgs Bison", a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Higgs Boson particle only recently detected by physicists after a 50-year search.

First detected when a team at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide, led by Alan Cooper, began sequencing DNA from ancient European bison looking for past impacts of climate change. The DNA from many of the bones had a different genetic makeup to anything they had previously known, which looked to them like a new species.

Aurochs, Lascaux Cave, France.

Photograph public domain.

"The researchers dubbed the creature Bison-X and Higgs Bison. Furtheer examination of the DNA showed that this new animal was actually a hybrid between the steppe bison and the aurochs, a species of wild cattle believed to be the ancestor of modern cows Beyond that the researchers knew very little about the animal including what it looked like." (Daley 2016)

Aurochs, Lascaux Cave, France.

Photograph public domain.

"Cooper contacted French cave researchers to see if the animal might have been captured by the hunters who decorated the caves of Lascaux and Pergouset. And indeed there was a record of this creature." (Daley 2016)

Steppe bison, Chauvet cave, France.

httpwww.zmescience.com - public domain.

Steppe bison, Chauvet cave, France.

httpwww.zmescience.com - public domain.

They found that images of cave bison which could be dated to between 18,000 to 22,000 years ago clearly depict the steppe bison with its long horns and stout forequarters. However images from 5,000 years later show a creature without such a barrel chest and thinner horns. Researchers of cave art had previously assumed that the differences were ones of style and regional variation in portrayals.

Researchers believe that the shift in dominant types was likely due to the periodic changing climates in the Paleolithic period. "Cooper and his colleagues traced the Higgs Bison back over 120,000 years using DNA from fossil bones from Europe, the Urals and  the Caucusus Mountains, according to a press release. During warm spells, the steppe bison was the dominant bovine in western Eurasia. During cold spells, the fossil record suggests that the hybrid animals did better. While the steppe bison eventually went extinct, Higgs Bison survived and is the ancient ancestor of modern European bison." (Daley 2016)

"'Once formed, the new hybrid species seems to have successfully carved out a niche on the landscape, and kept to itself genetically,' Cooper says in the press release. 'It dominated during colder tundra-like periods, without the warm summers, and was the largest European species to survive the megafaunal extinctions.'" (Daley 2016)

Wisent, Higgs bison, Lorblanchet cave,

 France. www.zmescience.com. 

Public domain.

Wisent, Higgs bison

Public domain.

One contributing factor in the large difference observed in the genome of the Higgs Bison compared to the European Bison is that the modern European Bison went through a genetic bottleneck. During the 1920s the population declined to only 12 animals so the genome looks quite different from its ancient ancestors. (Daley 2016)

With the origin of the hybrid bison traced back to approximately 120,000 years we now have to wonder if the North American bison also carries the genetic markers of the hybrid species. There would have been plenty of opportunity for them to enter North America across Beringia. Careful analysis of North American rock art and genetic testing of Bison bison DNA could reveal new information as well.

(Read the whole story at: http://www.smithsonianmag./smart-news/how-cave-art-helped-dig-new-animal-species-180960833/#lcLx3TozUKrd8Hah.99)

REFERENCE:

Daley, Jason

2016       Cave Paintings Help Unravel the Mystery of the 'Higgs Bison', http://www.smithsonianmag.com, October 19, 2016