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Ancient North American bison [1]
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Date: 2025-09-20
Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion, art, science, food, and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. Let’s look at some ancient North American bison (commonly called buffalo).
Among the best-known fossil sites in the world is Rancho La Brea (more commonly known as La Brea Tar Pits) in Los Angeles, California. Starting about 40,000 years ago, asphalt seeps trapped animals and insects. The bones of the animals trapped in the seeps were impregnated with asphalt, thus preserving them for study by today’s paleontologists. More than 10,000 individual animals from 565 species have been recovered from the site. Among the mammals found at La Brea are bison.
Bison originated in Asia and migrated to North America about 200,000 years ago. Their arrival marks the beginning of the Rancholabrean land mammal age. In his book Ice Age Mammals of North America, Ian Lange reports:
“Unfortunately, the actual date of the Rancholabrean Land Mammal Age is not known accurately, and dates vary between 300,000 and 100,000 years ago.”
At Rancho La Brea, bison are the most common large herbivore.
The Antique Bison (Bison antiquus) had a larger body, greater shoulder hump, and longer horns than the modern Plains buffalo. At least 150 of these animals have been found at La Brea.
Ian Lange reports:
“Evolution of Bison bison antiquus resulted in the development of two presently living subspecies, the plains bison (Bison bison bison) and the slightly larger woods bison (Bison bison athabascae). These animals are now the largest land animals in North America.”
Shown above is the skull of an Antique Bison which is 27,000 years old.
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