Historian in Residence: The History and Prehistory of the North American Buffalo
C.W. Gross is the 2021 Historian in Residence
Plains buffalo in Yellowstone National Park. Photo by C.W. Gross.
There is no animal as emblematic of the West as the buffalo (aka: bison). Once innumerable herds provided for the needs of Indigenous peoples and so impressed Europeans that they thought its population was truly inextinguishable. Métis trader, hunter, guide, and translator Peter Erasmus joined the Palliser Expedition alongside James Hector, later recounting how “We travelled through herds of buffalo nearly all the way. Deep ruts scored the prairie grass where the buffalo had travelled for centuries in their migrations back and forth across the plains… Our journey was frequently interrupted by the need to wait for the huge herds of buffalo that blocked our passage. These vast herds were the greatest I had ever witnessed. I only then realized that we had been in the extreme northern edges of the great herds that grazed along our borders and away south into American territory.”
There was an unfathomable time, however, when buffalo were unknown in North America.
Scientists studying the past use several different calendars to make sense of the Earth’s history. The most common is the geologic time scale. This calendar divides history into eons, which are themselves divided into eras, which are then divided into periods, epochs, and ages. For example, we live in the Meghalayan age of the Holocene epoch of the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era of the Phanerozoic eon. Some scientists have proposed that because humankind has become a planet-altering force, our modern day should be designated with a new epoch, new period, or even a new era dubbed the “Anthropocene.”
Scientists studying the current Ice Age – which has lasted for the entirety of the Quaternary period – use a calendar based on the advance and retreat of glaciers. When glaciers advance it is called a “glacial period” and when they retreat it is called an “interglacial period.” The last 300,000 years have seen the Illinoian glacial period, the Sangamonian interglacial period, the Wisconsinan glacial period, and the current interglacial period that we live in. There can also be warm and cool spells within those periods, called “interstadials” and “stadials” respectively. The most recent stadial was the “Little Ice Age” that lasted from around 1250 CE to 1900 CE. It was during the Little Ice Age that the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains last grew, and they have been shrinking ever since.
But scientists studying prehistoric life also use a calendar based on “faunal stages,” when different groups of animals lived together. These are mainly defined by when certain key species arrived or evolved in an area. In North America during the Cenozoic, these are called “North American Land Mammal Ages” or NALMA. The Rancholabrean NALMA – named for the famous La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles – lasted from approximately 210,000 to 11,000 years ago and is defined by the arrival of buffalo into North America.
The La Brea Tar Pits of downtown Los Angeles. Photo by C.W. Gross.
Buffalo and cows share a common ancestor that lived in Eurasia around 2 million years ago. Thereafter, buffalo evolved to thrive in the high northern latitudes of Asia during the Ice Age. 380,000 years ago, the cool Eurasian grasslands were dominated by the steppe buffalo or steppe wisent (Bison priscus), measuring 2 m (6.5 ft) tall at the hump and weighing in excess of 907 kg (2,000 lbs). Ancient pictures of steppe buffalo adorn the caves of Spain and France. These buffalo also migrated into Alaska and the Yukon across Beringia, the land bridge that linked North America to Siberia when massive glaciers on land lowered sea levels around the world.
Steppe buffalo were barred from migrating into the rest of North America by the vast ice sheets of the Illinoian glacial period. That changed 210,000 years ago during an interstadial warm spell. Glaciers retreated enough that they could head south through Western Canada and into the United States. When that interstadial ended and the glaciers closed back up, the North American population of steppe buffalo were isolated. In this new environment, they evolved into the long-horn buffalo (Bison latifrons).
Reconstruction of a long-horn buffalo surveying its forest home. Image by C.W. Gross.
Unlike modern buffalo, the 2.5 m (8.2 ft) tall, 1996 kg (4,400 lbs) long-horn buffalo lived a relatively solitary life in and at the edges of Ice Age forests. Their lonely lives were due, no doubt, to their namesake horns that stretched 2.2 m (7.2 ft) from tip to tip. Long-horn buffalo would have a good long run as well, lasting until 20,000 years ago when they were outcompeted by another group of buffalo that arrived on the plains.
During the latter part of the Sangamon interglacial, about 100,000 years ago, another group of steppe buffalo migrated into North America. When the Wisconsinan glacial period started 80,000 years ago, once more isolating this new group of steppe buffalo, they evolved into the ancient buffalo (Bison bison antiquus). Whereas long-horn buffalo were adapted to living in forests, the ancient buffalo was adapted to living on the cool grasslands that expanded during the new glacial period. 20,000 years ago, the Wisconsinan glaciers reached their maximum depth, breadth, and frigidity… a moment called the “Last Glacial Maximum” or LGM. At the LGM, the long-horn buffalo’s forests dwindled and large herds of ancient buffalo roamed the grasslands. About this same time, steppe buffalo were also on the decline, eventually going extinct 12,000 years ago and leaving behind the European wisent (Bison bonasus).
Reconstruction of an ancient buffalo. Image by C.W. Gross.
Ancient buffalo shared North America’s cool grasslands with mammoths, caribou, musk oxen, two species of horses, pronghorn antelope, llamas, and camels. They also had to be on the lookout for numerous predators. Lions were, at one time, one of the most successful predators on the planet. They ranged from Africa, throughout Eurasia and India, and across Beringia into North America. American lions (Panthera leo atrox) were about 25% larger than modern African lions (Panthera leo leo) and a formidable predator. Dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) were about as large as a modern Northwestern gray wolf (Canis lupus occidentalis) but heavier and stockier, as they were more specialized to take down larger and more robust prey. But more terrifying than either American lions or dire wolves, perhaps, were sabretooth cats (Smilodon fatalis).
About the size of an African lion but 100 kg heavier (about 280 kg to a lion’s 190 kg), Smilodon was much like a dire wolf: a heavier, stockier animal designed to hunt larger, more robust prey. It was not a long-distance sprinter chasing down fleet-footed prey. That would be left to the American cheetahs (Miracinonyx trumani) that also lived in North America’s Ice Age grasslands. Smilodon was, instead, an ambush predator lying in wait for stray buffalo and camel. When an unwary juvenile or isolated senior would pass, one or more Smilodon would leap at it and wrestle it to the ground under their weight. Once immobilized, Smilodon opened its jaws an astonishing 130o (vs. 65o for a modern cat) and bit into its neck with delicate but lethal 18 cm (7 in) long sabre teeth, severing its windpipe and jugular veins.
Reconstruction of the sabretooth cat. Image by Roman Yevseyev.
But even Smilodon was afraid of something: the short-faced bear (Arctodus simus). The largest bear that ever lived, this relative of the South American spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) was a whopping 953 kg (2,100 lbs) and 1.8 m (6 ft) tall at the shoulder. Despite this, the short-faced bear was probably not a very active hunter. Its long limbs were more suited to marathon long-distance runs than the short bursts and sudden turns required of active predators chasing prey. It also had massive nasal cavities suited to smelling food from kilometres away. It is more likely that a significant part of its diet came from “kleptoparasitism”… stealing the kills of other animals. Hardly sooner did a pride of Smilodon take down an ancient buffalo than a short-faced bear came loping over the horizon, using its bulk and 6 ft reach to chase them off and claim the buffalo carcass for itself.
The world of ancient buffalo, short-faced bears, and sabretooth cats came to an end around 11,700 years ago at the start of the Holocene epoch. A meteor struck Greenland 12,000 years ago, exacerbating a stadial known as the “Younger Dryas” which lasted for a thousand years. Ecosystems shifted with the decline of the Wisconsinan glaciers and raising of sea levels. New species migrated into North America at that time, including Northwestern gray wolves, grizzly bears, moose, elk, and wolverines. And those new species were followed by the ancestors of modern Indigenous peoples, who migrated down the coast of Alaska and British Columbia into the heart of the continent. These factors conspired to cause the extinction of 70% of species over 100 lbs and all species over a metric tonne. Mammoths, horses, sabretooth cats, short-faced bears, American lions, American cheetahs, camels, and llamas all went extinct in North America.
The extinction event also came at a price for ancient buffalo. Around this same time, they evolved into the smaller Western buffalo (Bison bison occidentalis). To the casual observer, a Western buffalo at 1.8 m (6 ft) tall and 998 kg (2,200 lbs) might not look much different from a very large modern buffalo. Yet around 5,000 years ago, Western buffalo shrank again into its two living descendants, the plains buffalo (Bison bison bison) and wood buffalo (Bison bison athabascae).
A wood buffalo in repose. Photo by C.W. Gross.
The cause of its shrinkage is likely tied to an event called the “Altithermal” or “Holocene Climatic Optimum.” This was a warm period lasting from 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, causing widespread drought, desertification, the expansion of grasslands, wildfires, and the drying up of rivers and lakes. This also marks a transition in the lives of Indigenous peoples of the plains. The Altithermal saw the changeover from what archaeologists call the “Early Period” to the “Middle Period,” including the transition from the spear to the throwing dart or atlatl. This episode also saw the emergence of the “Proto-Algic” language group in the Rocky Mountain foothills or Columbia Plateau. Proto-Algic was the language group from which the Blackfoot language evolved. The Blackfoot (Nitsitapii) may even carry a cultural memory of the Altithermal in the story of Napi’s Gambling Place. In this traditional story, Napi (the Old Man) gambled away the rivers, plants, and animals of his territory to the Westside Man of the Kootenay (K’tunaxa) people on the other side of the Rockies. Napi won a final winner-takes-all match and was able to reclaim what was his. By the end of the Altithermal, plains buffalo were so numerous that the Blackfoot could begin using buffalo jumps to hunt them. The oldest evidence of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump being used as a buffalo jump dates to 5,600 years ago.
Tragically, just as the arrival of Indigenous people 13,000 years before contributed to the extinction of the great Ice Age animals, the arrival of Europeans brought with it the near extinction of those nearly limitless buffalo herds. As Peter Erasmus recollected, upon seeing those “greatest herds I have ever witnessed,” that “It was then beyond my imagination to believe that the next fifteen years would see the last period of the buffalo’s existence in our country.” There were an estimated 30 million buffalo in North America at the outset of the 19th century. By its end, there were less than 600. The largest free-ranger herd in North America was 30 animals in Yellowstone National Park. There were no plains buffalo remaining in Canada.
In 1907, 377 plains buffalo from a private herd in Montana were made available to the Canadian government, who purchased and spirited them away to Elk Park, Alberta (now Elk Island National Park outside of Edmonton). Two years later, Buffalo National Park was established near Wainwright, Alberta, for the sole purpose of replenishing the plains buffalo in Canada. With the exception of 45 escapees, the herd at Elk Park was rounded up and shipped off to Buffalo National Park. Those buffalo who stayed at Elk Park gave rise to the plains buffalo herd that sits at the epicentre of global buffalo conservation.
Buffalo National Park was dissolved 1947, but Elk Island National Park remains. The park maintains a herd of 450 plains and wood buffalo that are genetically pure, free from both interbreeding with domestic cattle and bovine diseases. Excess buffalo are shipped around the world to replenish lost herds. The free range herds in Prince Albert, Grasslands, Riding Mountain, and Banff National Parks were established with animals from Elk Island. They have also been shipped to the Yukon, Northwest Territories, throughout the United States, and to Siberia. Buffalo have also been shipped to Indigenous reserves in Canada and the USA, not only to regain the buffalo’s foothold but as a significant act of cultural repatriation as well, re-establishing a relationship formed over thousands of years.
A “red dog” in Yellowstone, and continued hope for the species. Photo by C.W. Gross.
Today, there are some 500,000 plains buffalo in North America, mostly in private herds where they supply a growing market for lean buffalo meat. Approximately 1,000 plains buffalo are free-ranging in Canada. Those 30 buffalo in Yellowstone are now maintained at around 3,000. To gaze upon those herds of buffalo is to gaze upon the last of North America’s great Ice Age animals. Yes, chicakdees and mallards and Canada geese also flitted amidst mammoths and ancient buffalo while beavers and bobcats scurried underneath, but of all the charismatic “megafauna,” only the buffalo remains. Through conservation policy and good environmental stewardship, we still have this one last glimpse on a lost world.
C.W. (Cory) Gross is a professional educator with over 20 years of experience in museums and heritage. His primary field is the geology of Western Canada and its intersection with Indigenous, settler, and immigrant histories. In early 2020 he published his first book, The Ice Age in Western Canada.
