DNA from 17,000-year-old bones reveals: Giant cranes were simply large cranes

Palaeoanatomy

Munich, 04.11.2026: Using DNA from 17,000-year-old bones, researchers have shown that Europe’s great cranes from the late Pleistocene period (35,000 years ago) do not belong to a distinct species that went extinct around 1,000 years ago, as previously assumed. They belong to the same species as the common cranes Grus grus, which are still widespread today. Since the early High Middle Ages, however, common cranes have have become progressively smaller. An international research team, including SNSB archaeozoologist Nadja Pöllath, has now published these findings in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Cranes were already widespread in Europe 17,000 years ago, during the late Pleistocene. In 1869, French zoologist Henri Milne-Edwards described, based on bone fossils, a large crane species believed to have gone extinct 1,000 years ago: Grus primigenia. A look into the genes has now provided clarity. An international team of researchers led by John Stewart of Bournemouth University succeeded in extracting and sequencing DNA from bird bone fragments dating back as far as 35,000 years. The team examined crane bones dating from the late Pleistocene through the Middle Ages (approximately 17,000 to 1,000 years ago) from various sites across Europe, from Great Britain through France and Spain to Germany.

The result: All of the examined remains of the Pleistocene great cranes belong to the same species, the common crane Grus grus—which remains the most common crane species in Europe today. The scientists have thus refuted all hypotheses regarding the phylogenetic relationships of European great cranes. Neither did the extinct species Grus primigenia exist, nor were the Pleistocene cranes related to other large Asian crane species still existing today.

The researchers had previously been misled by the animals’ size: findings show that, until about 1,000 years ago, cranes existed that were significantly larger than today’s common cranes. For this reason, zoologists long suspected the existence of a separate species that went extinct about 1,000 years ago.

“We don’t know exactly why this bird species experienced such a significant reduction in size around 1,000 years ago. It is possible that changes in land use by humans at that time—such as the drainage of wetlands—were a contributing factor. Cranes breed primarily in wet or damp areas such as bogs or wet meadows. If their habitat shrinks, disturbances occur during their breeding season, and their food supply dwindles. It’s also possible that cranes were hunted due to crop damages,” explains Nadja Pöllath, an archaeozoologist at the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History and co-author of the study.

A total of 12 scientists participated in the study, led by researchers from the University of Bournemouth and the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

Publication:
John R. Stewart, Rebecca Rickard, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, Keith Dobney, Veronique Laroulandie, Josep Antoni Alcover, Joan Femenias-Gual, Nadja Pöllath, Erik Ersmark, Bodil Cronholm, Per G. P. Ericson, Love Dalén; Ancient DNA study resolves the taxonomic status of the extinct large Palaearctic crane Grus primigenia Milne-Edwards, 1871 (Aves: Gruiformes: Gruidae). R. Soc. Open Sci. 1 October 2026; 13 (10): 260699. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.260699

Scientific Contact:
Dr. Nadja Pöllath
SNSB – Staatssammlung für Paläoanatomie
Tel.: 08121 7089 33, E-Mail: poellath@snsb.de