New finds of European bison identified through the systematic DNA-based species identification of archaeological remains of large bovines from Scandinavia

Abstract

It is clear from the subfossil record that aurochs (Bos primigenius) and European bison (Bison bonasus) coexisted in southern Scandinavia during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. However, the two species are unevenly represented, especially in zooarchaeological assemblages where the aurochs is the only identified bovine. By applying genetic taxonomic assignment from mitochondrial and shallow whole-genome shotgun data from prehistoric bovine remains, this study explores the proposition that the predominance of aurochs in the subfossil record in part results from misassignment of European bison remains caused by overlapping skeletal morphology. Although our results confirm that most aurochs assignments of bovine bones are valid, through our analysis we were able to expand the European bison subfossil record and also reveal the exploitation of the species by prehistoric Scandinavians during the very early Holocene. Hence, it would appear that Mesolithic communities’ hunting strategies centred primarily around the fauna local to their wetland settlements and/or indeed point to the early local disappearance of the European bison, as previously supposed.