More than a million years ago, the steppe bison roamed North America long before humans set foot on the continent. Over time, this bison transformed into the massive Ice Age bison, which lived from 200,000 to 30,000 years ago. Later, it was replaced by two other types of bison: Bison occidentalis, likely originating from Eurasia, and Bison antiquus, which evolved independently. The earliest humans in North America, known as Paleo-Indians, likely hunted these latter two bison species along with other large plant-eating animals like mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, and ground sloths. Approximately 10,000 years ago, many of these large animals disappeared, possibly due to excessive hunting or a combination of factors. Bison antiquus managed to survive, albeit with a reduction in size over time, eventually evolving into the smaller modern American bison around 5,000 years ago.


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