• DOI:10.1126/SCIENCE.1101074
• Corpus ID: 27134675

Rise and Fall of the Beringian Steppe Bison

@article{Shapiro2004RiseAF,
  title={Rise and Fall of the Beringian Steppe Bison},
  author={Beth Shapiro and Alexei J. Drummond and Andrew Rambaut and Michael Clayton Wilson and Paul E. Matheus and Andrei V. Sher and Oliver G. Pybus and Marcus Thomas Pius Gilbert and Ian Barnes and Jonas Binladen and Eske Willerslev and Anders Johannes Hansen and Gennady F. Baryshnikov and James Alexander Scott Burns and Sergei Davydov and Jonathan Driver and Duane G. Froese and Charles R. Harington and Grant Keddie and Pavel A Kosintsev and Michael L. Kunz and Larry D. Martin and Robert O. Stephenson and John E. Storer and Richard H. Tedford and Sergei Zimov and Alan Cooper},
  journal={Science},
  year={2004},
  volume={306},
  pages={1561 - 1565}
}

• B. Shapiro, A. Drummond, +24 authors A. Cooper
• Published 26 November 2004
• Environmental Science, Geography
• Science

The widespread extinctions of large mammals at the end of the Pleistocene epoch have often been attributed to the depredations of humans; here we present genetic evidence that questions this assumption. We used ancient DNA and Bayesian techniques to reconstruct a detailed genetic history of bison throughout the late Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. Our analyses depict a large diverse population living throughout Beringia until around 37,000 years before the present, when the population's genetic diversity began to decline dramatically. The timing of this decline correlates with environmental changes associated with the onset of the last glacial cycle, whereas archaeological evidence does not support the presence of large populations of humans in Eastern Beringia until more than 15,000 years later.