The state animal of Kansas was almost exterminated long before white settlers came to the Plains and had their try at it.

The bison, a longtime staple for American Indian tribes of the Great Plains, nearly went extinct 20,000 years ago, according to new research published by a Kansas University paleontologist.

“If the bison had become extinct, things would have been a lot different here,” said Larry Martin, senior curator at the KU Natural History Museum. “Kansas certainly wouldn’t have been where the buffalo roamed.”

Martin’s research was conducted with colleagues from Oxford University. The scientists analyzed DNA samples from 442 ancient bison from Alaska, Canada, Siberia, China and the lower 48 states. Martin’s focus was on samples from Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming, which KU has used as an excavation site for numerous projects.

Scientists have long thought that the lack of genetic variation in today’s bison herds was due to the near-extinction that occurred in the 1800s, when settlers and railroads nearly wiped out the wild buffalo population. Only a few hundred bison remain, mainly at farms and ranches.

But analysis of the DNA showed a significant drop in genetic variation — what experts call a “genetic bottleneck” — around 20,000 years ago.

A dramatic cold snap caused a large ice sheet to separate the northern and southern parts of Canada during that time, and northern bison herds became extinct. The southern herds barely survived.

“Bison were within an inch of being extinct,” Martin said.

Previously, some researchers had thought a decline in ancient bison populations was due to excessive hunting.

Larry Martin has just finished a paper that says more than humans were responsible for the destruction of the bison in North America. Martin, who works at Kansas University's Natural History Museum, is pictured on Monday near stuffed bison in Dyche Hall.

Major resurgence

Those bison that did survive came back in huge numbers, with population estimates ranging from 30 million to 70 million before European settlement and the more recent decline.

That bodes well for tycoon Ted Turner, who has purchased about 2 million acres of land in the West, including Kansas, with hopes of increasing buffalo populations in their native habitat.

“I think one of the interesting things is the bison did come back,” Martin said. “It tells us they have the opportunity to have large populations again. So when we talk about the idea of the ‘bison commons’ (turning the sparsely populated Plains into a venue for bison and prairie restoration), they could come back and do just fine. Ted Turner may get it after all.”

‘What if?’

The idea that bison could have become extinct before widespread settlement of the Plains, the last major haven of the animals, is an interesting what-if game for Rita Napier, an associate professor of history at KU who teaches a course on American Indian history.

Many tribes that lived in early times in this part of the country tended gardens in addition to hunting, so they likely could have existed without bison, she said.

But with the introduction of the horse to North America, other tribes migrated to the Great Plains with the prospect of hunting buffalo.

Those tribes likely wouldn’t have had reason to be on the Plains without buffalo. Other game in the area, such as deer and antelope, were much more difficult to hunt.

“There still would have been some changes (in American Indian populations),” Napier said, “but not the revolution that occurred during that period.”

The extinction of the bison would have had effects on white settlement as well, Napier said.

After all, Napier said, the Europeans typically went where they could trade with American Indians. That’s not to mention that buffalo provided subsistence for whites headed west.

“You could make the argument that white people — Euro-Americans — would not have gone to most places in North America had there not been Indians in them,” she said. “If there were few Indian people using the Plains, there would be less reason to be there. It could be we wouldn’t have had as much interest in settling the area as getting across it.”