Late Quaternary distribution dynamics and phylogeography of the red deer (Cervus elaphus) in Europe

Here we present spatial-temporal patterns for European late Quaternary red deer (Cervus elaphus), based on radiocarbon-supported evidence derived mainly from archaeological sites. This is followed by an overview of the recent phylogeography of this species using haplogroup studies of recent molecular data. The implications of the synthesis of palaeontological and genetic data are discussed and we propose that present day European red deer haplogroup distributions are best explained against the history of late Quaternary population contractions into and expansions from glacial refugia. Around 800 records of Cervus elaphus were assigned to the period covering the later part of the Last Glacial and the Early to Middle Holocene. Red deer becomes increasingly visible in faunal assemblages dated to late OIS-3 (<40.0 ka 14C BP). The species persisted throughout the LGM on the Iberian Peninsula, in adjacent regions of South-Western France (Gascony, Dordogne, Languedoc), on the Italian Peninsula, in the Balkans and Greece, and east of the Carpathians in Moldavia. We suggest that genetic exchange between the populations of the Balkans and the East of the Carpathians remained uninterrupted during the LGM. The expansion of red deer from its southern refugia into Central and Northern Europe begins rapidly at 12,500 14C BP. The expansion of red deer coincides with the sudden rise in temperature at the onset of Greenland Interstadial 1e and the dispersion of open birch woodland into the northern half of Europe. Radiocarbon supported records show a more or less universal distribution of Cervus elaphus across Europe following the Pleistocene/Holocene climatic change at 10.0 ka 14C BP for the first time. Molecular data and fossil record combined provide a clearer temporal and spatial pattern for the Lateglacial recolonisation process of the northern part of Europe.