Historically, the lowland European bison's range encompassed most of the lowlands of northern Europe, extending from the Massif Central to the Volga River and the Caucasus. It may have once lived in the Asiatic part of what is now the Russian Federation. The European bison is known in southern Sweden only between 9500 and 8700 BP, and in Denmark similarly is documented only from the Pre-Boreal. It is not recorded from the British Isles nor from Italy or the Iberian Peninsula although prehistorical absence of the species among British Isles is debatable based on fossils found on Doggerland or Brown Bank and Isle of Wight and Oxfordshire followed by fossil records of steppe bison from the isles. A possible ancestor, the extinct steppe bison, B. priscus, is known from across Eurasia and North America, last occurring 7,000 BC to 5,400 BC, and is depicted in the Cave of Altamira and Lascaux. Another possible ancestor, the Pleistocene woodland bison (B. schoetensacki), was last present 36,000 BC. Cave paintings appear to distinguish between B. bonasus and B. priscus.