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First record of Bison antiquus from the Late Pleistocene of southern Mexico
Abstract
In Mexico, just 54 % of the reported Pleistocene Bison material has been identified to species. Current paleontological research in northwestern Oaxaca, southern Mexico, has allowed collection of several specimens of Bison antiquus that are part of the Viko Vijin Local Fauna. B. antiquus had a very wide geographic distribution, from lowlands to mountainous landscapes of North and Central America. The B. antiquus record from southern Mexico links their former records from central Mexico and middle Central America and confirms this wide geographic distribution. The univariate mesowear score of the B. antiquus specimens from Oaxaca is in the lower extreme of grazers and the upper end of mixed-feeders, suggesting that they had a less abrasive diet than the modern plains Bison, as has been observed in other samples of this species from diverse parts of North America. The presence of B. antiquus in the Viko Vijin L. F. constrains the age of this fossil assemblage within a range from 60 Ka to 11.7 Ka.
... A lo largo de las cañadas y los ríos es frecuente encontrar rellenos de sedimentos con fauna del Pleistoceno tardío (hasta hace 11700 años antes del presente) (Figuras 1 y 2). Algunos de estos depósitos fosilíferos han sido estudiados por los autores, con el objetivo de describir e identificar taxonómicamente a la fauna que contienen (Jiménez-Hidalgo, et al, 2011;Jiménez-Hidalgo, et al, 2013;Jiménez-Hidalgo y Guerrero-Arenas, 2012;Guerrero-Arenas, et al. 2013). En este texto nos enfocaremos a los depósitos encontrados en los alrededores de Concepción Buenavista y Villa Tejupam de la Unión. ...
... A lo largo de las cañadas y los ríos es frecuente encontrar rellenos de sedimentos con fauna del Pleistoceno tardío (hasta hace 11700 años antes del presente) (Figuras 1 y 2). Algunos de estos depósitos fosilíferos han sido estudiados por los autores, con el objetivo de describir e identificar taxonómicamente a la fauna que contienen (Jiménez-Hidalgo, et al, 2011;Jiménez-Hidalgo, et al, 2013;Jiménez-Hidalgo y Guerrero-Arenas, 2012;Guerrero-Arenas, et al. 2013). En este texto nos enfocaremos a los depósitos encontrados en los alrededores de Concepción Buenavista y Villa Tejupam de la Unión. ...
... Una de las zonas estudiadas está en los alrededores de Concepción Buenavista, en el distrito de Coixtlahuaca. En los depósitos pleistocénicos de este lugar hemos encontrado una gran diversidad de moluscos dulceacuícolas y terrestres (Guerrero-Arenas et al., 2013). Se han encontrado cuatro especies de gasterópodos terrestres (Pupilla muscorum, Paralaoma vitreum, Euconulus fulvus, Glyphyalinia identata paucilirata), cuatro taxones de gasterópodos dulceacuícolas (Lymnaeidae indet., Gyraulus (Toquis) parvus, Planorbella trivolvis, Succineidae indet.) ...
Se presenta un análisis de los tipos de hábitat del Pleistoceno tardío de Coixtlahuaca y Tejupam como línea de base ecológicas y su importancia para los esfuerzos de conservación en el área de estudio.
... El registro de Bison antiquus es el más sureño para Norteamérica y el primero para la especie en Oaxaca (Jiménez-Hidalgo, et al., 2013). ...
... El registro de Bison antiquus es el más sureño para Norteamérica y el primero para la especie en Oaxaca (Jiménez-Hidalgo, et al., 2013). ...
El total de 37 taxones de anfibios, reptiles (incluyendo dinosaurios) y aves, encontrados en sitios paleontológicos y arqueológicos, representan casi la mitad de los 72 taxones encontrados para mamíferos fósiles en Oaxaca. Esto indica la falta de estudios
hacia estos grupos de vertebrados, tal como sucede en el resto del país. Temporalmente, se tiene representados al Jurásico Medio, Jurásico Superior y Cretácico Inferior en el Mesozoico de Oaxaca; mientras que para el Cenozoico se tiene al Oligoceno, Pleistoceno tardío y Holoceno, quedando un hiatus temporal de 85 ma., entre el Cretácico Inferior y el Oligoceno, así como otro hiatus de 28 ma., entre el Oligoceno y el Pleistoceno. La falta de fósiles de anfibios y reptiles en estas edades se puede deber a la falta de colecta de material o a que restos de estos se encuentran guardados aún en gabinetes. En contraste, se han encontrado restos fósiles de 28 taxones mamíferos en cinco localidades del Paleógeno y Neógeno. Espacialmente, la presencia de fósiles de anfibios, reptiles y aves de Oaxaca en las provincias biogeográficas muestra una alta representatividad en la Sierra Madre del Sur y un sitio en la Costa del Pacífico. En comparación con el registro de mamíferos fósiles en el estado de Oaxaca, se encontró que existe una alta representatividad en la Sierra Madre del Sur, tendencia que se observa a nivel nacional hablando de mamíferos fósiles. También se tienen registros en las provincias de Oaxaca y Golfo de México, además de un único registro en la Costa del Pacífico. Esto sugiere que deben existir sitios fósilíferos con restos de anfibios, reptiles y aves en las regiones de Oaxaca y el Golfo de México, donde se han encontrado restos de mamíferos.
... molars were identified as Bison antiquus by morphological and morphometric comparison with teeth from the literature (Allen, 1876;Chandler, 1916;Hillson, 2005), by direct comparison with osteological collections (such as the one at the Laboratorio de Arqueozoología 'M. en C. Ticul Álvarez Solórzano,' Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City), and by their association with several isolated horn cores and complete skulls of this species in the study localities (McDonald, 1981;Jiménez-Hidalgo et al., 2013). ...
Bison antiquus Leidy, 1852 was one of the largest and most widely distributed megafaunal species during the Late Pleistocene in North America, giving rise to the modern plains bison in the middle Holocene. Despite the importance of the ancient bison, little is known about its feeding ecology. We employed a combination of extended mesowear, and mesowear III to infer the dietary preference and habitat use of three Mexican samples of B. antiquus . These included two northern samples—La Piedad-Santa Ana and La Cinta-Portalitos—from the Transmexican Volcanic Belt morphotectonic Province, as well as one southern sample—Viko Vijin—from the Sierra Madre del Sur morphotectonic province. We found that the northern Mexican samples were primarily nonstrict grazers, whereas the southern sample displays a pattern consistent with mixed feeding habits. This suggests variability among the diets of the bison from these samples, caused by different paleoenvironments. This evidence complements the paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the studied localities; for the northern samples, open prairies composed of patches of woodland or shrubland and, for the southern locality, a fluvial floodplain with short-lived vegetation. In both scenarios, grasses (Poaceae) were nondominant. The dietary habits of our samples of ancient bison in Mexico are the southernmost dietary inference for the species in North America and expand our knowledge of the dietary habits of B. antiquus during the Late Pleistocene.
... It is unclear to what degree modern North American bison are able to survive in closed forests, and whether they would choose to occupy such a habitat if not forced by human factors, although use of open woodland is more common ( Meagher, 1986). Prehistoric North American bison ranged from Alaska to southern Mexico, inhabiting habitats from semidesert to boreal forest ( McDonald, 1981;Jim enez-Hidalgo et al., 2013). 4. Plot of scores on DF2 vs. DF1 for a range of extant herbivore species, including bison, and Pleistocene bison assemblages. ...
Over the course of the Early and early Middle Pleistocene, a climatic cooling trend led to the partial opening up of landscapes in the western Palaearctic. This led to a gradual replacement of browsers by grazers, whilst some herbivore species shifted their diet towards including more grass. Wear patterns of herbivore cheek teeth can inform our understanding of the timing and extent of this change and indicate levels of dietary plasticity. One of the indicator species of the faunal turnover is the first large-sized form of bison in the Palaearctic, Bison menneri. The dental mesowear of the palaeopopulation from the species' late Early Pleistocene type site of Untermassfeld in Central Germany and the Late Pleistocene B. priscus from Taubach, both from habitat mosaics of forested habitats and more open landscapes, have a mixed feeder profile similar to that of North American wood bison, which has a distinct preference for open habitats but occasionally consumes a high amount of browse as a fall-back food. In contrast, the grazer mesowear signature of early Middle Pleistocene B. schoetensacki voigtstedtensis from Voigtstedt indicates these animals likely did not regularly feed in the densely forested area around the site. The mesowear of B. schoetensacki from Süssenborn, in a more open environment, is similar to that of extant European bison. Both Pleistocene and extant bison are grazers to mixed feeders with relatively high tolerance of a suboptimal browsing diet. None of these species can be regarded as true ‘wood bison’.
... This assemblage has several fossils of vertebrates, mainly from large and medium-sized mammals. Gomphoteres, horses, camels, proboscideans and bison species have been reported (Jiménez-Hidalgo et al., 2011, 2013. In addition to these large mammals, terrestrial and freshwater mollusks are also present, as well as diverse microvertebrates, like rodents and lizards. ...
The Mixteca Alta Oaxaqueña is in the state of Oaxaca, southern Mexico. This region is characterized by numerous Pleistocene fossiliferous localities. The objective of this study is to describe a diverse assemblage of Late Pleistocene freshwater and terrestrial mollusks in two localities from northeastern Oaxaca, Coixtlahuaca District. We identified 10 taxa of gastropods and one of bivalves. By the sedimentological characteristics and the mollusks assemblage, it is possible to relate the first locality with meandriform river deposits, without vegetation. The second locality was associated with a floodplain with short-lived associated vegetation. Five identified species constitute the most austral records of these taxa in Neartic Realm. In all the taxa, the Late Pleistocene ocurrences constitute the last records of the identified mollusks in the study zone.
American bison demonstrated differential patterns of extinction, survival, and expansion since the terminal Pleistocene. We determined population dynamics of the Northern Great Plains bison using 40 mitochondrial genomes from radiocarbon dated remains with the age ranging from 12,226 to 167 calibrated years before present. Population dynamics correlated with environmental and anthropogenic factors and was characterized by three primary periods: terminal Pleistocene population growth starting 14,000 years ago, mid Holocene demographic stability between 6700 and 2700 years ago, and late Holocene population decline in the last 2700 years. Most diversification of mtDNA haplotypes occurred in the early Holocene when bison colonized new territories opened by retreating ice sheets. Holocene mtDNA lineages were not found in modern bison and lacked association with archaeological sites and morphological forms.
Following the near extinction of bison (Bison bison) from its historic range across North America in the late 19th century, novel bison conservation efforts in the early 20th century catalyzed a popular widespread conservation movement to protect and restore bison among other species and places. Since Allen's initial delineation (1876) of the historic distribution of North American bison, subsequent attempts have been hampered by knowledge gaps about bison distribution and abundance prior to and following colonial arrival and settlement. For the first time, we applied a multidisciplinary approach to assemble a comprehensive, integrated geographic database and meta‐analysis of bison occurrence over the last 200,000 years, with particular emphasis on the 450 years before present. We combined paleontology, archaeology, and historical ecology data for our database, which totaled 6438 observations. We derived the observations from existing online databases, published literature, and first‐hand exploration journal entries. To illustrate the conservative maximum historical extent of occurrence of bison, we created a concave hull using observations occurring over the last 450 years (n = 3379 observations), which is the broadly accepted historical benchmark at 1500 CE covering 59% of the North American continent. Although this distribution represents a historic extent of occurrence—merely delineating the maximum margins of the near‐continental distribution—it does not replace a density‐based approach reconstructing potential historical range distributions, which identifies core and marginal ranges. However, we envision the observations contained in this database will contribute to further research in the increasingly evidence‐based disciplines of bison ecology, evolution, rewilding, management, and conservation. There are no copyright or proprietary restrictions on these data, and this data paper should be cited when the data are reused.
The fossils from San Mateo Huexoyucan, Tlaxcala, Mexico are formally described in this work. The specimens collected since 2011 include cranial and postcranial ele ments of Pleistocene Megafauna. The iden tification of the elements allows to postulate that they correspond to six previously reported species for the study area (Bison antiquus, Camelops hesternus, Cuvieronius hyodon, Equus conversidens, E. mexicanus and Mammuthus sp.), high lighting the presence of fossil material that corresponds to a juvenile individual of pro boscideans (Mammuthus sp.) and glyptodonts (cf. Glyptotherium floridanum).
Se reporta el registro más austral de Bison latifrons para América del Norte. El registro
procede de una nueva localidad fosilífera en el municipio de San Dionisio
Ocotepec, localizado en los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca. La fauna asociada incluye a Mammuthus columbi, Equus cf. E.conversidens y Bison sp. Por la presenciade bisontes y de mamut, se infiere unaedad correspondiente al Rancholabreano(Pleistoceno tardío). Adicionalmente, se llevó a cabo un análisis de mesodesgastepara proboscídeos y un análisis de microdesgaste
de baja magnificación (35x) a losrestos dentales de mamut. Los resultados de estos análisis sugieren que el individuode M. columbi era un pacedor. Debido alos hábitos dietarios del mamut y del hábitat
inferido para caballos y bisontes deMéxico, inferimos que, durante el Pleistoceno,
en el sitio debieron existir zonas abiertas con pastizales en las partes planas.
El presente registro de Bison latifronses el primero de la especie para Oaxaca(México) y para la provincia morfotectónica del Cinturón Volcánico Transmexicano; con ello, su rango de distribución geográfica conocida se extiende en másde 447 km, desde Tequixquiac en el Estado de México hasta el centro de Oaxaca.Esta nueva localidad fosilífera contribuyeal conocimiento de las faunas del Pleistoceno tardío de la porción sur de Méxicoy en particular del centro de Oaxaca, lo que mejora nuestro entendimiento de loscambios bióticos y climáticos ocurridos durante el inicio del Holoceno.
Se describen los fósiles de mamíferos pleistocénicos procedentes de la zona de San Mateo Huexoyucán, Tlaxca- la, México, alojados en la Colección Paleontológica de la Benemérita Uni- versidad Autónoma de Puebla. Se cuales seis son nuevos registros para el área de estudio (Bison antiquus, cf. Bison occidentalis, Camelops hesternus, Equus mexicanus, Eremotherium laurillardi cf. ). También se reportan formalmente tres especies que fueron mencionadas en traba- jos previos (Cuvieronius hyodon, Equus conversidens y Mammuthus sp.). La pre- sencia de Bison permite asignar una Edad Mamífero Rancholabreana (Pleistoceno tardío) a la asociación faunística. En concordancia con esto, los fósiles proceden de una secuencia de 51798 47650 años A.P.
A preliminary, broad-scale vegetation map reconstruction for use by archaeologists and anthropologists is presented here for the world at the Last Glacial Maximum (18,000 BP, but broadly representing the interval from 25,000 to 15,000 BP). The global LGM map was produced from a range of literature and map sources, and drawn on a GIS with topographic information. Extended coastlines due to LGM sea-level drop were obtained using bathymetric information. The map is available in image and Geographic Information System (GIS) formats, on a global or regional basis.
Late Pleistocene bison skeletal remains from the Gallelli Gravel Pit in the Bighill Creek Formation at Calgary, Alberta, document at least two individuals, including the largest postglacial bison reported from North America south of Beringia. Two partial crania, dated to 11 290 and 10 100 C-14 years BP, are referred to the southern species Bison antiquus Leidy, indicating northward movement from the midcontinent as ice retreat opened a corridor between Laurentide and Cordilleran ice. Their large size suggests a dispersal phenotype exploiting newly available territory. DNA evidence links the 11 290-year-old bison to Clade 1, which includes modern B. bison. This supports in situ evolution of B. bison from B. antiquus through the intermediate usually called B. "occidentalis''. Bison of B. "occidentalis'' character appeared in Alberta about 10 ka BP, and the DNA evidence counters the suggestion of a migratory wave from Beringia. The B. occidentalis type specimen is from Alaska, so this name may be inappropriate for southern populations. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the Bighill Creek Formation paleofauna comprises two faunules separated in time by the Younger Dryas climatic episode.
Paleontological work carried out in the Late Pleistocene floodplain and bar fluvial deposits of northwestern Oaxaca, southern Mexico, resulted in collecting cranial and poscranial material of mammals identified as Glyptotherium, Hemiauchenia, Camelops, Odocoileus, two Equus species, Cuvieronius, Mammuthus and Bison. The presence of Bison in all the localities indicates a Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal age for the faunal assemblage. Also, many mollusk specimens were collected and belong to five families of terrestrial gastropods, three families of freshwater gastropods, and one family of freshwater bivalves. Additionally, several fragments of Rodentia indet., sigmodontine rodents, and scincomorph lizards were also recovered through the screen-washing of sediments. This faunal association was designed herein as the Viko vijin (cold epoch or period in Mixteca language) Local Fauna (L. F.) and shares nine mammalian taxa with the Rancholabrean local faunas of Terapa (Sonora, NW Mexico), Chapala (Jalisco), El Cedazo (Aguascalientes) and Tequixquiac (Mexico), central Mexico. Likewise, five of the eight mollusk families identified are also present in the Late Pleistocene Rancho La Amapola, San Luis Potosi, Central Mexico. The presence of the llama Hemiauchenia in Oaxaca represents the southern-most record of this genus during the Late Pleistocene in North America, while Late Pleistocene scincomorph lizards are recorded for first time in Oaxaca. Similarly, the records of the mollusk families Bulimulidae, Polygyridae and Urocoptidae in the Mixteca Alta Oaxaquenit are the first for Mexico and allow extend their geographic ranges from southern USA to southern Mexico during the Late Pleistocene.
A Bison antiquus cranium and partial skeleton from Ayer Pond wetland on Orcas Island, San Juan Islands, Washington, date to 11,760 ± 70 14C yr BP. They lay in lacustrine sediments below peat, unconformably above emergent Everson Glaciomarine Drift (> 12,000 14C yr BP). Several bison finds in similar contexts on Orcas and Vancouver Islands dating between 11,750 and 10,800 14C yr BP indicate an early postglacial land mammal dispersal corridor with reduced water barriers between mainland and islands. New bison dates and published shell dates allow estimation of early postglacial relative sea-level trends for the San Juans, with a drop below modern datum ∼ 12,000 14C yr BP, and assist in evaluation of marine reservoir corrections. Emergence by ∼ 60 m is suggested by data from nearby areas. A tundra-like or meadow community and succeeding open pine parkland before 11,000 14C yr BP supported bison but horn-core reduction suggests suboptimal forage or restricted habitat. Expanding mixed-conifer forests after 11,000 14C yr BP contributed to bison extirpation. Dispersing ungulates such as bison must have influenced island vegetation establishment and early succession. Possible evidence for butchering by early coastal people adds significance to the Ayer Pond discovery, given its pre-Clovis age.
Disarticulated elements from three individuals of Mammuthus cf. M. columbi (Falconer) and one individual of Bison cf. B. latifrons (Harlan) were recovered from an excavation in gravelly, sandy clay of the Colma Formation at the southeast base of Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, California. This is the most abundant collection of late Pleistocene terrestrial vertebrates reported from San Francisco, and only the fourth record from excavations in the city proper. The Mammuthus-Bison association indicates a Rancholabrean age, and elements of these two taxa from this site have been radiocarbon dated at 25,380 ± 1,100 years B.P. Geologic setting, lithology, associated diatoms and pollen, and preservation of the bones suggest that these animals were buried rapidly in a boggy environment on the west margin of the broad valley now occupied by San Francisco Bay.
A change in repository is noted and a complete description is given for IMNH 714/40119, a partial Bison alaskensis cranium collected in 1894 along the Snake River in the vicinity of American Falls. This specimen, the first documented fossil from the American Falls local fauna, is morphologically distinct from the larger-horned B. latifrons and the shorter-horned B. priscus, both of which are also found in southeastern Idaho. It and other specimens of B. alaskensis from late Pleistocene sediments in the American Falls area demonstrate a morphologic canalization of the species and document that a substantial population of B. alaskensis inhabited southeastern Idaho. A stratigraphie review of Bison material from the American Falls area suggests that as many as four species of Bison inhabited Idaho during the late Rancholabrean and that both B. latifrons and B. alaskensis survived well into the late Pleistocene.
The Diamond Valley Lake local fauna from southwestern Riverside County, California is characterized by a classic suite of well-preserved late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean NALMA) vertebrates, including over 100,000 identifiable fossils representing more than 105 vertebrate, invertebrate and plant taxa from 2646 localities. The fauna is the largest open-environment, non-asphaltic late Pleistocene assemblage known from the American southwest. Located within the northern Peninsular Range physiographic province of southern California, the Diamond and Domenigoni Valleys contain bedded silts and clays intercalated with coarse-grained channel fill representing a braided stream environment. These fluvial sediments, yielding AMS dates from ∼19 ka to ∼13 ka, unconformably truncate older silts, clays and an organic black clay at depth. The clay is lacustrine in origin, with AMS dates from ∼46 ka to ∼41 ka. Numerous diagnostic vertebrate remains occur in both of these sediment packages. The Diamond Valley Lake local fauna constitutes a valuable source of new data on the relative density and diversity of late Pleistocene species from a geographic area where such data are largely absent. The assemblage differs dramatically in preservation and composition from other late Pleistocene coastal and desert localities in southern California.
Mexico's Pleistocene terrestrial mammal record includes 13 orders, 44 families, 147 genera and 280 species, thus is comparable to the Recent one, but shows greater ordinal and family diversity. Post-Pleistocene extinction chiefly involved meso- and megabaric species. The mammal, palynologic and paleosol records are strongly time and space biased in favor of Late Rancholabrean data from a few morphotectonic provinces; hence, only broad climatic trends could be delineated, which approximately coincide with those known for the Wisconsinan; they disclose by 25–12ka, greater moisture and cooler temperature conditions than at present, coinciding too with a larger mammalian diversity and local faunas disharmony. Climate fluctuations impacted the fauna, causing species distribution changes and extinctions. The Recent fauna's complex biogeographic pattern reflects this; it includes tropical and temperate species associations outside their respective latitudes. Combining geologic and Recent mammal distribution data with the Pleistocene record, possible dispersal routes were detected: high and low land, southward corridors for temperate species, and low land, northward ones for tropical species. Finally, the existence of a single Mexican Rancholabrean Faunal Province is incompatible with mammal record's makeup and distribution, which calls for a multiprovince scheme to better understand Mexico's Pleistocene mammal biogeography and faunistics.
Dental characters have always been important in mammal taxonomy and systematics. This is primarily due to the fact that the mammalian fossil record largely consists of teeth, which show tremendous morphological diversity throughout the group and sufficient variability in size and shape to be used as major classifying traits in subordinate taxa. To describe and compare tooth crown morphologies, their individual elements are named by specified nomenclatures (see, e.g. Thenius 1989). These usually comprise terms for the basic cusps and cuspids referring to the descriptive tritubercular terminology (protoconus, paraconus, etc.) of Cope (1874, 1883) and Osborn (1888) and continuative work. They are complemented with additional terms for apomorphic elements of the individual mammalian clades.
In Ruminantia a variety of nomenclatures were applied in the past to describe dental features. This paper aims to clarify the meaning and correspondence of the array of previously used terms, focusing not only on permanent cheek teeth but also on deciduous premolars. Therefore, we synonymize the nomenclature used by various authors in table form to facilitate their identification and eventually their further use in a comparative way (e.g. in a phylogenetic analysis). Moreover, we propose a set of terms, based on these previous studies, which we consider most useful for future work on ruminant teeth.
In recent years, tooth microwear has been used as a powerful tool for investigating mammalian diets in paleontological or archaeological contexts. Tooth microwear techniques were applied to a number of late Pleistocene assemblages of bison (Bison antiquus) from North America to analyze bison dietary traits, but more particularly, to test for dietary plasticity of the fossil species compared to their modern relatives. Modern bison species are known to be grazers from their ecology. However, the results from tooth wear analysis indicate that dietary traits were more diverse in the fossil bison than in their modern relatives. Bison paleodiets range from pure grazing to mixed feeding. The results illustrate not only the dietary plasticity for that species, but also the potential implications involved when using modern species as analogues for reconstructing the ecology of fossil species. Tooth microwear is a good proxy in archaeological contexts because it gives an insight on the diet of the last days of an animal's life. The intra-population variability in diet is discussed in relation to the duration of formation of the assemblages (natural assemblages versus archaeological Paleo-Indian sites).
During the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, Bison was widely dispersed across North America and occupied most regions not covered by ice sheets. A dietary study on Bison paleopopulations from Alaska, New Mexico, Florida, and Texas was performed using two methods that relate dental wear patterns to diet, mesowear analysis and microwear analysis. These data were compared to a mixed sample of extant Bison from the North American central plains, extant wood Bison from Alberta (Canada) and a variety of other modern ungulates. Mesowear relates macroscopic molar facet shape to levels of dietary abrasion. The mesowear signature observed on fossil Bison differs significantly from the hyper-abrasive grazing diet of extant Bison. Tooth microwear examines wear on the surface of enamel at a microscopic scale. The microwear signal of fossil samples resembles to modern Bison, but the fossil samples show a greater diversity of features, suggesting that fossil Bison populations regularly consumed food items that are texturally inconsistent with the short-grass diet typical of modern plains Bison. Mesowear and microwear signals of fossil Bison samples most closely resemble a variety of typical mixed feeding ungulates, all with diets that are substantially less abrasive than what is typical for modern plains Bison. Furthermore, statistical tests suggest significant differences between the microwear signatures of the fossil samples, thus revealing geographic variability in Pleistocene Bison diets. This study reveals that fossils are of value in developing an understanding of the dietary breadth and ecological versatility of species that, in recent times, are rare, endangered, and occupy only a small remnant of their former ranges.
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