Elk Migrations To North America

I missed this interesting study at the time it was originally released. It uses multiple methods to infer the arrival of elk in North America via Beringia which generally coincides with the human migration to North America via essentially the same route at about the same time.

Human colonization of the New World is generally believed to have entailed migrations from Siberia across the Bering isthmus. However, the limited archaeological record of these migrations means that details of the timing, cause and rate remain cryptic. 

Here, we have used a combination of ancient DNA, 14C dating, hydrogen and oxygen isotopes, and collagen sequencing to explore the colonization history of one of the few other large mammals to have successfully migrated into the Americas at this time: the North American elk (Cervus elaphus canadensis), also known as wapiti. 

We identify a long-term occupation of northeast Siberia, far beyond the species’s current Old World distribution. Migration into North America occurred at the end of the last glaciation, while the northeast Siberian source population became extinct only within the last 500 years. This finding is congruent with a similar proposed delay in human colonization, inferred from modern human mitochondrial DNA, and suggestions that the Bering isthmus was not traversable during parts of the Late Pleistocene. Our data imply a fundamental constraint in crossing Beringia, placing limits on the age and mode of human settlement in the Americas, and further establish the utility of ancient DNA in palaeontological investigations of species histories.

Meirav Meiri, et al., "Faunal record identifies Bering isthmus conditions as constraint to end-Pleistocene migration to the New World", Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (December 11, 2013) (Hat tip to Linear Population Model).