Elsevier

Quaternary International

Volume 406, Part B, 25 June 2016, Pages 94-110
Quaternary International

The Yukagir Bison: The exterior morphology of a complete frozen mummy of the extinct steppe bison, Bison priscus from the early Holocene of northern Yakutia, Russia

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.084Get rights and content

Abstract

The paper presents analyses of the exterior morphology of one of the extinct and dominating species of the Late Pleistocene megafauna of Eurasia, the steppe bison, Bison priscus. The frozen mummy of the Yukagir Bison found in northern Yakutia, Russia represents the most complete specimen of this species in the world. It belongs to a young, 4.1–4.5 year old male, which dates back about 10,500 cal BP. The analyses revealed that the overall size of this specimen was comparable to a 6-year old European and American bison. Its horn spread falls within the upper limits of B. bison athabascae and B. bison bison males, as well as within the average sizes of B. priscus occidentalis from East Siberia and North America. While most of the not fully-grown Yukagir Bison body size fell within the average parameters of both grown modern species, the body and hind foot lengths were closer to the lower limits of the European bison. The color and hair pattern appeared to be close to the Blue Babe mummy (B. priscus) and modern Wood bison (modern morphotype of B. bison athabascae) and European (B. bonasus) bison. The geological age of the Yukagir Bison, along with the data from other specimens indicate that this species, which survived the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, became rare but was still widely distributed in the northern part of centraleastern Siberia until about 8000 years ago. The juxtaposed data from arctic latitude sediments and the Bison priscus stomach content pollen indicate that it was selective grazer in the environment dominated by unfavorable shrub and forest-tundra vegetation. The scarce Holocene steppe bison remains in Eastern Siberia reflects the dramatic decrease of suitable habitats and pastures during the early Holocene climatic optimum in the high Arctic, which was a major factor of irreversible population fragmentation and decline leading to the species' extinction.

Introduction

Skeletal remains and frozen corpses of fossil mammals preserved in the permafrost have exceptional scientific value. A considerable number of such remains have been found in the Arctic zone of Yakutia in the regions containing ice sediments of the Yedoma suite. To date, more than 15 frozen corpses, including mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, horses, bison, and a wolverine, have been found and described scientifically (Vereshchagin and Tikhonov, 1999, Lazarev et al., 2001, Boeskorov et al., 2007, Lazarev, 2008, Boeskorov et al., 2011, Maschenko et al., 2012 and references therein). Studies of mummified corpses of the Quaternary mammals preserved in the permafrost give much more information than is available from bones, the most common paleontological material found everywhere. Over the past 20 years, the microbiological, genetic, and isotope studies of the recovered mummies have largely expanded our knowledge of the paleoecology and paleogeography of the Pleistocene and Holocene mammals (Guthrie, 1990, Vereshchagin and Tikhonov, 1999, Rogaev et al., 2006, Boeskorov et al., 2007, Gilbert et al., 2007, Rountrey et al., 2007, Rountrey et al., 2012, Zazula et al., 2009, Boeskorov et al., 2011, Meiri et al., 2014).

Fossils of the steppe bison (Bison priscus Bojanus, 1827) are among the most numerous finds, along with the mammoth remains, collected from the Quaternary deposits of the unglaciated regions in Eastern Siberia particularly, and Beringia in general. In Eastern Siberia (Western Beringia), the majority are recovered from the river valleys on the mainland and on islands in the Arctic Ocean, indicating that the species was very widespread in these regions, with the exception of the mountains (Rusanov, 1975, Lazarev and Tomskaya, 1987, Guthrie, 1990).

In general, most of the Bison priscus remains are represented by isolated skeletal elements and rarely by complete skulls with preserved horn sheaths. Skeletons of the steppe bison, let alone the complete frozen mummies, had never been discovered and reported in the Palearctic before this find (Boeskorov et al., 2014a, Boeskorov et al., 2014b).

Across the Holarctic, isolated body parts and remains of partial carcasses with mummified tissues of the adult steppe bison, Bison priscus, have been discovered and reported. These include two mummified distal legs of the Clearly Creek Bison found in Alaska in 1934 and 1936; a mummified distal leg of the Goldstream Creek Bison in Alaska found in 1936; the mummified distal forefoot with hoof of the 2.5–3 year old bison from the Struyka River, a tributary of the Indigirka River in Eastern Siberia found in 1946; the isolated remains of the mummified skin with hair, some hair from the tail, and partial horn sheath of the bison from the Muogdaana River, a tributary of the Vilui River in Eastern Siberia; and the mummified middle portion of a hind leg of the adult bison from the Yana River in Eastern Siberia found during 1885–1886 (Popov, 1948, Guthrie, 1990). More complete finds of steppe bison frozen corpses have been found in Eastern Siberia and represented by the almost 75% complete specimen of the 2.5 year old, female Mylakhchyn Bison from the Indigirka River basin, which exhibited damage to the frontal part of the body (29,500 BP; Flerov, 1977); the complete Batagai Bison calf from the Yana River basin (Lazarev et al., 2011); the rear portion of the carcass from the Rauchya River (Kirillova et al., 2013), in Western Beringia; and the almost complete bison from the Anuy River (Nikolskiy and Shidlovsky, 2014).

Mummified remains from Eastern Beringia (North America) include the partial carcass of the 7 year old female, Fairbanks Creek Bison, retaining the neck, head and horns with sheaths found in Alaska in 1952 (11,950 BP; Flerov, 1977, Guthrie, 1990); the partial carcass of the mummified Dome Creek young adult male bison (28,000 BP), the partial carcass with piece of hide, intestines and some mummified tissues covering postcranials found in Tsiigehtchic, Northwest Territories, Canada (11,830 BP; Zazula et al., 2009), and the most famous and well known to the public, almost complete mummified carcass of the 8–9 year old male bison nicknamed “Blue Babe”, from Pearl Creek, Alaska (36,000 BP; Guthrie, 1990).

A frozen mummy of a steppe bison named “Yukagir Bison” was discovered in the summer of 2011 from the thawing northern slope of the Chukchalakh Lake in the Yana-Indigirka Lowland of northern Yakutia, Eastern Siberia, Russia (Fig. 1, Fig. 2). The site location is 72°17′30″N, 140°54′05″E, based on Anonymous (1956). The find represents the second, after the Blue Babe discovery of an adult specimen of the species in the world that had over 50% of the skeleton and soft tissues remains preserved. The bison mummy received its name after the Yukagir Community members who recovered this specimen and played key roles in recent discoveries of many bones and frozen carcasses in the northern part of Yakutia. Among these, in 1994, they discovered a whole “mammoth cemetery” on the Maksunuokha River bank, encountering bones from five woolly mammoths, and the remains of one mammoth mummified carcass (Boeskorov et al., 2006, Lazarev, 2008). In 2002, the sons of the Community leader Mr. Gorokhov, found the Yukagir Mammoth remains consisting of a frozen head with tusks, a left foreleg, hide pieces and postcranials, which were studied by an international, multidisciplinary research team (Boeskorov et al., 2007). Among other fascinating discoveries by the Yukagir Community members were the frozen woolly mammoth named “Yuka” (2009) and the extinct wild horse named “Yukagir Horse” (2010), both found on the Oyagossky Yar on the coast of Dmitry Laptev Strait, about 100 km north from the Yukagir Bison site (Boeskorov et al., 2013, Boeskorov et al., 2014a, Boeskorov et al., 2014b, Maschenko et al., 2014).

The sites of these finds are located in the tundra zone of the Yana-Indigirka Lowland. It is largely represented by the Upper Pleistocene Yedoma suite, composed of icy silts alternating with massive polygonal ice veins. The area is heavily waterlogged and covered by numerous lakes. The northern part of the lowland is dominated by arctic, hillocky tundra (Boeskorov et al., 2006, Boeskorov et al., 2007). The soil types of the locations are typical for the tundra zone and are represented by permafrost tundra humus-gley and peat-gley soils (Elovskaya et al., 1979).

The studies of the buried humus soils from the Upper Pleistocene of the Yukagir Mammoth site, which is located nearby to the south, revealed their steppe origin (Shchelchkova, 2009). The Yukagir Bison site is within 25 km of the Yukagir Mammoth site, where obvious differences of the landscape relief with the Yukagir Mammoth site are absent. The sediments composing this hilly plain cut by the Maksunuokha River and flecked by numerous tundra lakes is represented by the Yedoma deposits of Late Pleistocene age. In the Late Pleistocene, this ancient plain was covered by the vast tundra-steppe with rich herbaceous vegetation supporting abundant and diverse mammal fauna (Lazarev, 2008).

Section snippets

Material

Shortly after its recovery in the summer of 2011, the Yukagir Bison mummy was brought to a dugout ice storage in the Yukagir village, where it was kept under frozen conditions. Later that year, the mummy, owned by the Yukagir Community and led by the late Mr. Vassily Gorokhov, was loaned to the Yakutian Academy of Sciences, Yakutsk (catalogue # OYu 3; Department of Mammoth Fauna Studies) for this study. In January 2012, the mummy (Fig. 3, Fig. 7A–K) was delivered to Yakutsk and tested for

Geological age

The processed sample materials of the horn tip and hair were of excellent quality. The hair sample was chemically pretreated by the AAA method, and the bone sample collagen was extracted. The C and N parameters and stable isotope ratios δ13C and δ15N were well within the expected range.

Lab codeSampleAge BPδ13C (‰)C%δ15N (‰)N%C/NAge cal BP
GrA 53290Horn core tip9310 ± 45 (±1σ)−20.6448.08.6416.83.210,580–10,430 (±1σ)
GrA 53292Hair9295 ± 45 (±1σ)−24.5358.410,570–10,425 (±1σ)

Both samples, horn and

Environment and diet

The Yukagir Bison died about 10,500 calendar years ago at the early Holocene-Later Dryas abrupt climatic warming (Khotinsky, 1977, Severinghaus et al., 1998). In northeastern Siberia and Oyagossky Yar particularly, this period is characteristic for thermokarst processes that included thawing and reworking of the permafrost deposits, which were accumulated during the preceding Sartanian glaciation in the eastern section of the arctic shelf (Wetterich et al., 2009).

The bison diet based on the

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the research organizations of Yakutian (Sakha) Academy of Sciences, Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, SD, and Russian Academy of Sciences. The authors are thankful to Dr. Daniel Fisher (University of Michigan, Arbor, MI) for facilitating of the samples AMS dating, Julie Mossman (Hot Springs, SD) for the text editing, Jeff Martin (The University of Maine, ME, USA) for providing literature to ORP that significantly advanced the paper preparation, and the NEFU, DPMGIRAS,

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