Bison priscus Fossil Bone Skull Prehistoric Steppe Bison Megafauna Pleistocene Quaternary Collection

Skullcap Fossil Bone Steppe Bison cm 19 x 16 x 11 - 532 gr Prehistoric Bovine Bison priscus Megafauna Extinct Artiodactyl Mammals Pleistocene Quaternary Collecting Paleontology Museum.

Interesting collectible fossil find of fair quality, well-preserved portion of neurocranium, allowing the morphology and structure of the trabeculae of the internal spongy bone tissue to be observed, with clear details of the cerebral cavities. Only a piece, as in photos.

The Steppe Bison (Bison priscus, Bojanus, 1827) is an extinct species of prehistoric bison that lived in the middle-upper Pleistocene and in the first part of the Holocene, about 600,000 - 7,500 years ago, and spread from Eurasia to North America in it was quaternary in what were once the Mammoth steppes.
These bison were up to 2 meters tall at the withers and had horns half a meter long each. The width of the skull was over one meter and twenty. The length of the entire animal must have reached 2.7 meters, and the weight could have been around 900 kilograms. The appearance of the steppe bison must have been very reminiscent of that of the current American forest bison, even if it differed from the latter due to some characteristics of the skull. Furthermore, the horns were much larger in the steppe bison (about double the current forms). Compared to other somewhat older extinct bison species (such as Bison menneri), the steppe bison had very high neural spines in the dorsal vertebrae, and was therefore present with a high hump similar to that of today's bison species.
Bison priscus was first described by Bojanus in 1827; numerous fossil remains of this bison are found in deposits throughout much of Europe. It is thought that these animals evolved in central or southern Asia like their aurochs relatives, with whom they were often confused, and then expanded into Europe (England, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Romania, Russia, Turkey and France). The most recent fossil remains are those dating back to the Wurmian glaciation, and it therefore seems that the steppe bison became extinct during the last glaciation. This species also reached Japan and North America, a continent which it entered thanks to the passage created between Siberia and Alaska, about 15,000 years ago.
It appears that Bison priscus is the ancestor of both current bison species; probably gave rise to the European bison (Bison bonasus) through a smaller European form (Bison priscus mediator), while the giant subspecies of Asia and North America (Bison priscus gigas) could be the origin of the American bison (Bison bison).
The large horns of the steppe bison did not allow this animal to live for a long time in the Pleistocene woods and forests, unlike its close relative Bison schoetensacki (with smaller horns). Bison priscus was therefore widespread in the steppes and open lands of the northern continents, where it became in many cases the predominant large herbivore.
As with other large mammals that lived in the Pleistocene, exceptional, substantially mummified remains have also been found for the steppe bison. One of the most famous specimens of steppe bison was found in 1979 at a quarry in Alaska: some miners found the perfectly preserved mummy of a male specimen of this bison species, which lived 36,000 years ago: it was called Blue Babe due to its color bluish, due to the presence of vivianite, a blue-coloured hydrated iron phosphate. When found, it was in such good condition that a portion of the neck meat was cooked and tasted by scholars at the University of Alaska (Guthrie, 1989).
In 2011, a second Bison priscus mummy, dated 9,300 years old, was found from Yukagir, Siberia.
Overlapping data from Arctic latitude sediments and stomach pollen of Bison priscus indicate that this animal was a selective grazer in an environment dominated by shrubs and tundra forest vegetation.
It seems that the steppe bison was repeatedly portrayed by early Paleolithic artists during the Wurmian glaciation, for example in the famous cave paintings of Altamira in Spain or in the ivory sculpture found at Vogelherd in Germany. It is unclear whether hunting by humans significantly contributed to the extinction of this animal which was thus replaced by the European bison in Europe and the American bison in North America.