Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-09T03:17:48.764Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Late Pleistocene mammoth remains from Coastal Maine, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

B. Gary Hoyle ,
Daniel C. Fisher ,
Harold W. Borns Jr. ,
Lisa L. Churchill-Dickson ,
Christopher C. Dorion  and
Thomas K. Weddle
B. Gary Hoyle
Affiliation:
Maine State Museum, Augusta, ME 04333-0083, USA
Daniel C. Fisher*
Affiliation:
Maine State Museum, Augusta, ME 04333-0083, USA
Harold W. Borns Jr.*
Affiliation:
Maine State Museum, Augusta, ME 04333-0083, USA
Lisa L. Churchill-Dickson
Affiliation:
7 Penley Street, Augusta, ME 04330, USA
Christopher C. Dorion
Affiliation:
79 Bennoch Road, Orono, ME 04473, USA
Thomas K. Weddle
Affiliation:
Maine Geological Survey, Augusta, ME 04333-0022, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: (734) 936-1380.E-mail address:dcfisher@umich.edu (D.C. Fisher).
1This and the following authors are listed alphabetically.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Remains identified as those of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) dated at 12,200 ± 55 14C yr B.P. were recovered while excavating in a complex sequence of glaciomarine sediments in Scarborough, Maine, USA. The mammoth was found in the top meter of a fossiliferous unit of mud and sand laminites. These sediments were deposited during a marine regressive phase following the transgression that accompanied northward retreat of the margin of the Laurentide ice sheet. A Portlandia arctica valve from the underlying transgressive unit provides a minimum age of 14,820 ± 105 14C yr B.P. for local deglaciation. The mammoth, an adult female, died in midwinter with no evidence of human involvement. Tusk growth rates and oxygen-isotope variation over the last few years of life record low seasonality. The mammoth was transported to the site as a partial carcass by the late-glacial proto-Saco River. It sank in a near-shore setting, was subjected to additional disarticulation and scattering of elements, and was finally buried in sediments reworked by the shallowing sea.

Keywords

PleistoceneWoolly mammothMammuthus primigeniusPresumpscot FormationMaineDeglaciationGlaciomarine sedimentsRelative sea level
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , May 2004 , pp. 277 - 288
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, R.T, (1991). Seashells of the Northern Hemisphere. Gallery Books, New York.Google Scholar
Abbott, R.T, Boss, K.J, (1989). A Classification of the Living Mollusca. American Malacologists, Melbourne, FL.Google Scholar
Agenbroad, L.D, Lister, A, Mol, D, Roth, V.L, (1994). Mammuthus primigenius remains from the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, South Dakota. Agenbroad, L.D, Mead, J.I, The Hot Springs Mammoth Site. The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, Hot Springs, SD., 269–281.Google Scholar
Alstair, G, (1988). Molluscs: Prosobranch and Pyramidellid Gastropods. Synopses of the British Faunas, The Linnaean Society of London and The Estuarine and Brackish-Water Sciences Association. E.J. Brill, Leiden.Google Scholar
Anderson, R.S, Miller, N.G, Davis, R.B, Nelson, R.E, (1990). Terrestrial fossils in the marine Presumpscot Formation: implications for late Wisconsinan paleoenvironments and isostatic rebound along the coast of Maine. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 27, 1241–1246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Averianov, A.O, (1996). Sexual dimorphism in the mammoth skull, teeth, and long bones. Shoshani, J, Tassy, P, The Proboscidea: Evolution and Paleoecology of Elephants and Their Relatives. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford., 260–267.Google Scholar
Barnhardt, W.A., (1994). ). Late Quaternary relative sea-level change and evolution of the Maine inner continental shelf 12.7 ka B.P. University of Maine, Orono., . [Ph.D. thesis].Google Scholar
Barnhardt, W.A, Belknap, D.F, Kelley, J.T, (1997). Stratigraphic evolution of the inner continental shelf in response to late Quaternary relative sea-level change, northwestern Gulf of Maine. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 109, 612–630.Google Scholar
Bloom, A.L, (1963). Late Pleistocene fluctuations of sea level and postglacial crustal rebound in coastal Maine. American Journal of Science. 261, 862–879.Google Scholar
Bondevik, S, Birks, H.H, Gulliksen, S, Mangerud, J, (1999). Late Weichselian marine 14C reservoir ages at the western coast of Norway. Quaternary Research. 52, 104–114.Google Scholar
Bousfield, E.L, (1960). Canadian Atlantic Sea Shells. Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, National Museum of Canada, Ottawa.Google Scholar
Brouwers, E.M, Cronin, T.M, Horne, D.J, Lord, A.R, (2000). Recent shallow marine ostracods from high latitudes: implications for late Pliocene and Quaternary paleoclimatology. Boreas. 29, 127–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldwell, D.W, (1992). A mammoth find in the Presumpscot Formation in Scarboro, Maine. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs. 24, 3 10.Google Scholar
Clinch, J.M., Thompson, W.B., (1990). ). Surficial geology of the Prouts Neck quadrangle, Cumberland and York counties, Maine. Open-File No. 90-32, 2 maps (scale 1:24,000). Maine Geological Survey, Augusta.Google Scholar
Cooke, H.B.S, Harington, C.R, Sollows, J.D, (1993). Undescribed mammoth (Mammuthus) teeth from Georges Bank and Nova Scotia. Proceedings of the Nova Scotia Institute of Science. 40, 19–28.Google Scholar
Dorion, C.C, Balco, G.A, Kaplan, M.R, Kreutz, K.J, Wright, J.D, Borns, H.W Jr., (2001). Stratigraphy, paleo-oceanography, chronology and environment during deglaciation of eastern Maine. Weddle, T.K, Retelle, M.J, Deglacial History and Relative Sea-Level Changes, Northern New England and Adjacent Canada. vol. 351, Geological Society of America Special Paper, Boulder, CO., 215–242.Google Scholar
Elder, W.H, (1970). Morphometry of elephant tusks. Zoologica Africana. 5, 143–159.Google Scholar
Fisher, D.C, (1987). Mastodont procurement by Paleoindians of the Great Lakes Region: hunting or scavenging?. Nitecki, M.H, Nitecki, D.V, The Evolution of Human Hunting. Plenum, New York., 309–421.Google Scholar
Fisher, D.C, (1988). Season of death of the Hiscock mastodonts. Laub, R.S, Miller, N.G, Steadman, D.W, Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Paleoecology and Archeology of the Eastern Great Lakes Region. Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. vol. 33, 115–125.Google Scholar
Fisher, D.C, (1996). Extinction of proboscideans in North America. Shoshani, J, Tassy, P, The Proboscidea: Evolution and Palaeoecology of Elephants and Their Relatives. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford., 296–315.Google Scholar
Fisher, D.C, (2001). Season of death, growth rates, and life history of North American Mammoths. West, D, Mammoth Site Studies. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Mammoth Site Studies, Lawrence, KS, March 11–13, 1998. Publications in Anthropology. vol. 22, 121–135.Google Scholar
Fisher, D.C, Fox, D.L, Agenbroad, L.D, (2003). Tusk growth rate and season of death of Mammuthus columbi from Hot Springs, South Dakota, USA. Reumer, J.W.F, De Vos, J, Mol, D, Advances in Mammoth Research. Proceedings of the Second International Mammoth Conference, Rotterdam, May 16–20, 1999. Deinsea. vol. 9, 117–133.Google Scholar
Fox, D.L, Fisher, D.C, (2001). Stable isotope ecology of a Late Miocene population of Gomphotherium productus (Mammalia, Proboscidea) from Port of Entry Pit, Oklahoma, USA. Palaios. 16, 279–293.Google Scholar
Fricke, H.C, O'Neil, J.R, (1996). Inter- and intra-tooth variation in the oxygen isotope composition of mammalian tooth enamel phosphate: implications for paleoclimatological and paleobiological research. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 126, 91–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuller, C.B, (1878). A fossil walrus discovered in the clays of Portland, Maine. American Naturalist. 12, 633.Google Scholar
Graham, R.W, (1986). Descriptions of the dentitions and stylohyoids of Mammuthus columbi from the Colby site. Frison, G.C, Todd, L.C, The Colby Mammoth Site. Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque., 171–190.Google Scholar
Hald, M, Steinsund, P.I, Dokken, T, Korsun, S, Polyak, L, Aspeli, R, (1994). Recent and late Quaternary distribution of Elphidium excavatum f. clavatum in arctic seas. Sejrup, H.P, Knudsen, K.L, Late Cenozoic Benthic Foraminifera: Taxonomy, Ecology, and Stratigraphy. Special Publication. vol. 32, Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research, Cambridge, MA., 141–153.Google Scholar
Harington, C.R, Ashworth, A.C, (1986). A mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) tooth from late Wisconsin deposits near Embden, North Dakota, and comments on the distribution of woolly mammoths south of the Wisconsin ice sheets. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 23, 909–918.Google Scholar
Haynes, G, (1991). Mammoths, Mastodonts, and Elephants. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hoyle, B.G, (1998). Late Pleistocene Mammuthus primigenius from coastal Maine. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs. 30, 1 26.Google Scholar
Kelley, J.T, Dickson, S.M, Belknap, D.F, Stuckenrath, R Jr., (1992). Sea-level change and late Quaternary sediment accumulation on the southern Maine inner continental shelf. Fletcher, C.H III, Wehmiller, J.F, Quaternary Coasts of the United States: Marine and Lacustrine Systems. Special Publication. vol. 48, Society for Sedimentary Geology, Tulsa., 23–34.Google Scholar
Koch, P.L., (1989). ). Paleobiology of late Pleistocene mastodonts and mammoths from southern Michigan and western New York. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor., . [Ph.D. thesis].Google Scholar
Koch, P.L, (1998). Isotopic reconstruction of past continental environments. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 26, 573–613.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koch, P.L, Fisher, D.C, Dettman, D.L, (1989). Oxygen isotope variation in the tusks of extinct proboscideans: a measure of season of death and seasonality. Geology. 17, 515–519.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koch, P.L, Hoppe, K.A, Webb, S.D, (1998). The isotopic ecology of late Pleistocene mammals in North America. Part 1. Florida. Chemical Geology. 152, 119–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laws, R.M, (1966). Age criteria for the African elephant, Loxodonta a. africana . East African Wildlife Journal. 4, 1–37.Google Scholar
Lee-Thorp, J.A, van der Merwe, N.J, (1987). Carbon isotope analysis of fossil bone apatite. South African Journal of Science. 83, 712–714.Google Scholar
Lister, A.M, (1996). Sexual dimorphism in the mammoth pelvis: an aid to gender determination. Shoshani, J, Tassy, P, The Proboscidea: Evolution and Paleoecology of Elephants and Their Relatives. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford., 254–259.Google Scholar
MacFadden, B.J, Cerling, T.E, Prado, J, (1996). Cenozoic terrestrial ecosystem evolution in Argentina: evidence from carbon isotopes of fossil mammal teeth. Palaios. 11, 319–327.Google Scholar
Madden, C.T., (1981). ). Mammoths of North America. University of Colorado, Boulder., . [Ph.D. thesis].Google Scholar
Maglio, V.J, (1973). Origin and evolution of the Elephantidae. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series. 63, 1–149.Google Scholar
Musil, R, (1968). Die Mammutmolaren von Predmosti. Paläontologische Abhandlungen, Abteilung A [Paläozoologie]. 3, 1–192.Google Scholar
Ockelmann, W.K, (1958). The Zoology of East Greenland: Marine Lamellibranchiata. C.A. Reitzels Forlag, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Oldale, R.N, (1989). Timing and mechanism for the deposition of the glaciomarine mud in and around the Gulf of Maine: a discussion of alternative models. Studies in Maine Geology. 5, 1–10.Google Scholar
Oldale, R.N, Whitmore, F.C Jr., Grimes, J.R, (1987). Elephant teeth from the western Gulf of Maine and their implications. National Geographic Research. 3, 439–446.Google Scholar
O'Neil, J.R, Roe, L.J, Reinhard, E, Blake, R.E, (1994). A rapid and precise method of oxygen isotope analysis of biogenic phosphate. Israel Journal of Earth Science. 43, 203–212.Google Scholar
Retelle, M.J., (1991). ). Surficial geology of the Old Orchard Beach quadrangle, Cumberland and York Counties, Maine. Open-File No. 91-4, 2 maps (scale 1:24,000). Maine Geological Survey, Augusta.Google Scholar
Retelle, M.J, Weddle, T.K, (2001). Deglaciation and relative sea-level chronology, Casco Bay Lowland and lower Androscoggin River valley, Maine. Weddle, T.K, Retelle, M.J, Deglacial History and Relative Sea-Level Changes, Northern New England and Adjacent Canada. vol. 351, Geological Society of America Special Paper, Boulder, CO., 191–214.Google Scholar
Richards, H.G, (1962). Studies on the marine Pleistocene. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series. 52, 3 1–136.Google Scholar
Ridge, J.C, Canwell, B.A, Kelly, M.A, Kelley, S.Z, (2001). Atmospheric 14C chronology for late Wisconsinan deglaciation and sea-level change in eastern New England using varve and paleomagnetic records. Weddle, T.C, Retelle, M.J, Deglacial History and Relative Sea-Level Changes, Northern New England and Adjacent Canada. vol. 351, Geological Society of America Special Paper, Boulder, CO., 171–189.Google Scholar
Saunders, J.J., (1970). ). The distribution and taxonomy of Mammuthus in Arizona. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson., . [M.S. thesis].Google Scholar
Schäfer, W, (1972). Ecology and Palaeoecology of Marine Environments. Craig, G.Y,Oertel, I. Trans.. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Stafford, T.W Jr., Hare, P.E, Curie, L, Jull, A.J.T, Donahue, D.J, (1991). Accelerator radiocarbon dating at the molecular level. Journal of Archaeological Science. 18, 35–72.Google Scholar
Stuart-Williams, H.LeQ, Schwarz, H.P, (1997). Oxygen isotopic determination of climatic variation using phosphate from beaver bone, tooth enamel, and dentine. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 61, 2539–2550.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Borns, H.W Jr., (1975). Late Quaternary marine invasion in Maine: its chronology and associated crustal movements. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America. 86, 99–104.Google Scholar
Tebble, N, (1966). British Bivalve Seashells. Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). Alden Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Thompson, W.B, Crossen, K.J, Borns, H.W Jr., Anderson, B.G, (1989). Glaciomarine deltas of Maine and their relation to late Pleistocene–Holocene crustal movements. Anderson, W.A, Borns, H.W Jr., Neotectonics of Maine—Studies in Seismicity, Crustal Warping, and Sea-Level Change. Maine Geological Survey, Augusta., 43–67.Google Scholar
Van Essen, H, Mol, D, (1996). Plio-Pleistocene proboscideans from the southern bight of the North Sea and the Eastern Scheldt, The Netherlands. Shoshani, J, Tassy, P, The Proboscidea: Evolution and Paleoecology of Elephants and Their Relatives. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford., 214–224.Google Scholar
Vereschagin, N.K, (1977). Berelyohskoye “kladbische” mamontov. Skarlato, A.O, Mamontovaya Fauna Russkoi Ravnini i Vostochoi Sibiri. Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta. vol. 72, 5–50.Google Scholar
Wagner, F.J.E, (1984). Illustrated Catalogue of the Mollusca (Gastropoda and Bivalvia) in the Atlantic Geoscience Centre Index Collection. Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, S.D, (1992). A brief history of New World Proboscidea with emphasis on their adaptations and interactions with man. Fox, J.W, Smith, C.B, Wilkins, K.T, Proboscidean and Paleoindian Interactions. Baylor Univ. Press, Waco, TX., 15–34.Google Scholar
Weddle, T.K., (1997). ). Surficial geology of the Lisbon Falls South 7.5′ quadrangle, Androscoggin, Cumberland, and Sagadahoc Counties, Maine. Open-File No. 97-49, 2 maps (scale 1:24,000). Maine Geological Survey, Augusta.Google Scholar
Whitmore, F.C Jr., Emery, K.O, Cooke, H.B.S, Swift, D.J.P, (1967). Elephant teeth from the Atlantic Continental Shelf. Science. 156, 1477–1481.Google Scholar