The two atlases from Late Pleistocene gravel deposits of the Magdeburg region, northern Germany, have been assigned to the auerochs (Bos primigenius) but look quite different. Are there any criteria to rule out that one of them actually belonged to the steppe bison (Bison priscus)?
Dear Michael. Certainly both after the Mindel-Riss and Riss periods. I am sure you're familiar with Martin, P P & Klein R.G. (eds) 1995. Quaternary extinctions - a prehistoric revolution. Tucson & London, The University of Arizona Press.
New editions and recent papers point towards the same conclusions.
Cheers,
JP
Dear Michael,
I do not have access to complete or partial skeletons of Bos primigenius or Bison priscus, so the following observations are only made based on differenced mentioned in literature between the atlases of two extant bovids that are the closest to the species mentioned above: Bos taurus and, respectively, Bison bison. The morphology of the atlas in the extant species may not be identical to the one seen in the extinct taxa, but, since they belong to the same genus (Bos taurus and Bos primigenius; Bison bison and Bison priscus), I think they can be used as a pretty good proxy.
There are two atlases in the pdf you attached. I will refer to the one that is lighter in colour as A1, and to the darker one as A2.
The main reference I suggest you check out is:
Olsen, S. J. 1960. Postcranial skeletal characters of Bison and Bos, Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University 35(4).
When referring to differences in the morphology of the atlas, Olsen points out three important features in separating the two genera: the shape of the neural canal, the shape of the transverse processes ("wings" as he refers to them), and the shape of the anterior notch (I'm sending you part of the paper by private message - you can read more about the differences there).
Based on his description, A1 appears, in my opinion, to show the features mentioned by Olsen as typical for Bison, whereas A2 is more similar to Bos.
It is, of course, only a first impression, which needs to be confirmed by comparison to more Bos and Bison specimens (both extant and extinct), but it seems to me that both Bos primigenius and Bison priscus are present in your collection.
There are more relevant differences between Bos and Bison in the morphology of limb bones. Do you have any bovid limb bones from the same sites?
Dear Joao and Stefan, thanks for helping me with the identification of the vertebrae.
Yes, the gravel pits where these remains come from probably cover (?Middle) Late Pleistocene to Holocene sediments and due to the type of mining (wet mining, i.e. under water digging) there is no finer stratigraphic resolution or relationship between individual bones. We have got lots of bison and aurochs skull remains.
@Stefan: Excuse me for taking so many a week for an answer. Olsen's work was quite helpful and I will probably use the atlases accordingly for the Pleistocene mammal exhibition (that is still under construction right now). That means one atlas will be mounted on / fixed to the wooden Bos primigenius silhouette, the other one to Bison priscus silhouette.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Asia
- India