Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-bt4hw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T18:16:50.772Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Interstadial Proboscidean from South-Central Alaska: Implications for Biogeography, Geology, and Archeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert M. Thorson ,
E. James Dixon Jr. ,
George S. Smith  and
Alan R. Batten
Robert M. Thorson
Affiliation:
University of Alaska Museum, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99701 Geology-Geophysics Program, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99701
E. James Dixon Jr.
Affiliation:
University of Alaska Museum, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99701
George S. Smith
Affiliation:
University of Alaska Museum, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99701
Alan R. Batten
Affiliation:
University of Alaska Museum, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99701 Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99701
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 1980 a large proboscidean femur, probably Mammuthus sp., was found in situ in a bluff exposure at the mouth of the Tyone River in the northwestern part of the Copper River Basin, Alaska. The regional setting, stratigraphy, radiocarbon chronology, flora, and implications of the fossil locality, which represents the first documented occurrence of Pleistocene terrestrial mammalian fauna in southern Alaska, are described. Radiocarbon dates and stratigraphic relations at the site indicate that the sediments containing the fossil accumulated during the transition from interstadial to glacial conditions during terminal middle Wisconsin time. During this interval the immediate vicinity was unforested and large areas of south-central Alaska may have been available for faunal and possibly human habitation. This documented find, dated at 29,450 ± 610 14C yr B.P., extends the known range for Pleistocene mammals and possibly steppe-tundra conditions south-ward at least 150 km, and suggests that mountain passes through the Alaska Range to the north were ice free during the last part of the middle Wisconsin interstadial.

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , November 1981 , pp. 404 - 417
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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ager, T.A. 1975. Late Quaternary environmental history of the Tanana Valley, Alaska. Ohio State University Institute of Polar Studies Report 54 Google Scholar
CLIMAP Project Members. 1976. The surface of the Ice-age Earth. Science 191. 1131–1137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coulter, H.W., Hopkins, D.M., Karlstrom, T.N.V., Péwé, T.L., Wahrhaftig, C., Williams, J.R. 1965. Extent of Glaciations in Alaska. U.S. Geological Survey, Misc. Geol. Inv. Map I-415scale 1:2,500,000Google Scholar
Denton, G.R. 1974. Quaternary glaciations of the White River Valley, Alaska, with a regional synthesis for the northern St. Elias Mountains, Alaska and Yukon Territory. Geological Society of America, Bulletin 85. 871–892.Google Scholar
Ferrians, O.J., Nichols, D.R. 1965. Copper River Basin. In “Guidebook for Field Conference F, Central and Southcentral Alaska.” Péwé, T.L. International Association for Quaternary Research, VII Congress. 93–114.Google Scholar
Ferrians, O.J., Schmoll, H.R. 1957. Extensive proglacial lake of Wisconsin age in the Copper River Basin, Alaska. Geological Society of America Bulletin 68. 1726 Google Scholar
Fladmark, K.R. 1978. The feasibility of the north-west coast as a migration route for early man. In “Early Man in America from a Circum-Pacific Perspective.” Bryan, A.L. 119–128 Occasional Paper No. 1. Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta Edmonton.Google Scholar
Giterman, R.E., Golubeva, L.V. 1967. Vegetation of eastern Siberia during the Anthropogene Period. In “The Bering Land Bridge.” Hopkins, D.M. 232–244 Stanford Univ. Press Stanfora, Calif.Google Scholar
Guthrie, R.D. 1968. Paleoecology of the large mammal community in interior Alaska. American Midland Naturalist 79. 346–363.Google Scholar
Guthrie, R.D. 1973. Report on radiocarbon date SI-852. American Journal of Science Radiocarbon Supplement 15. 397 Google Scholar
Hamilton, T.D. 1982. Mountain glaciation in Alaska. In “Late Quaternary of the United States.” Porter, S.C. U.S. Contribution to XI INQUA Congress, 1982. In pressGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, T.D., Thorson, R.M. 1982. The Cordilleran icesheet in Alaska. In “Late Quaternary of the United States.” Porter, S.C. U.S. Contribution to XI INQUA Congress, 1982. In pressGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, T.D., Stuckenrath, R., Stuiver, M. 1980. Itkillik Glaciation in the central Brooks Range: Radiocarbon dates and stratigraphic record. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 12. 109 Google Scholar
Hibben, F.C. 1943. Evidence of early man in Alaska. American Antiquity 8. 254–259.Google Scholar
Hopkins, D.M. 1978. Landscape and climate of Beringia during late Pleistocene and Holocene time. In “The First Americans: Origins, Affinities, and Adaptations.” Laughlin, W.S., Harper, A.B. 15–41 Gustav Fisher New York.Google Scholar
Irving, W.N., Harington, C.R. 1973. Upper Pleistocene radiocarbon-dated artefacts from the northern Yukon. Science 179. 335–340.Google Scholar
Kachadoorian, R., Hopkins, D.M., Nichols, D.R. 1954. A preliminary report of geologic factors affecting highway construction in the area between the Susitna and McLaren rivers, Alaska. U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report. 54–137.Google Scholar
Karlstrom, T.N.V. 1964 Quaternary Geology of the Kenai Lowland and Glacial History of the Cook Inlet Region, AlaskaU.S. Geological Survey Professional paper 443Google Scholar
Keim, C.J. 1969 Aghvook, White Eskimo: Ottc Geist and Alaskan Archaeology Univ. of Alaska Press College.Google Scholar
Kind, N.V. 1975. Glaciations in the Verkhoyansk Mountains and their place in the radiocarbon geochronology of the Siberian late Anthropogene. Biuletyn Peryglacjalny 24. 41–54.Google Scholar
Langway, C.C. Jr., Dansgaard, W., Johnsen, S.J., Clausen, H. 1973. Climatic fluctuations during the late Pleistocene. In “The Wisconsinan Stage.” Black, R.F. Geological Society of America Memoir 136. 317–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsen, H. 1968. Trail Creek: Final Report on the excavation of two caves on Seward Peninsula, Alaska. Acta Arctica 15. 1–79.Google Scholar
Matthews, J.V. Jr. 1974. Wisconsin environment of interior Alaska: Pollen and macrofossil analysis of a 27 meter core from the Isabella Basin (Fairbanks, Alaska). Canadian Journal of Earth Science 11. 828–841.Google Scholar
Matthews, J.V. Jr. 1976. Arctic Steppe: An extinct Biome. In “Abstracts, 4th Biennial Meeting of the American Quaternary Association.” Tempe, Arizona 73–77.Google Scholar
Matthews, J.V. Jr. 1980. Possible evidence for an early Wisconsin warm interstadial in east Beringia. In “Abstracts, 6th Biennial Meeting of the American Quaternary Association.” Orono, Maine 130–131.Google Scholar
Morlan, R.E. 1980 Taphonomy and Archaeology of the Upper Pleistocene of the Northern Yukon Territory: A Glimpse of the Peopling of the New WorldArchaeological Survey of Canada Paper 94Google Scholar
Orth, D.J. 1967 Dictionary of Alaskan Place NamesU.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 567Google Scholar
Péwé, T.L. 1975 Quaternary Geology of AlaskaU.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 835Google Scholar
Rainey, F.G. 1939. Archaeology in Central Alaska. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 36. 351–405.Google Scholar
Rampton, V.N. 1971. Late Quaternary vegetational and climatic history of the Snag-Klutlan area, southeastern Yukon Territory, Canada. Geological Society of America, Bulletin 82. 959–978.Google Scholar
Sellman, P.V. 1972. Additional information on the geology and properties of materials exposed in the USA CRREL permafrost tunnel. U.S. Army Material Command Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory Special Report. 16Hanover, New HampshireGoogle Scholar
Shackleton, N.J., Opdyke, N.D. 1973. Oxygen isotope and paleomagnetic stratigraphy of equatorial pacific core V28–238: Oxygen isotope temperatures and ice volumes on a 105year and 106 year scale Quaternary Research 3. 39–55.Google Scholar
Thorson, R.M., Plaskett, D.C., Dixon, E.J. Jr. 1980. A reported early man site adjacent to southern Alaska's continental shelf: A geologic solution to an archeologicenigma. Quaternary Research 13. 259–273.Google Scholar
von Hune, R., Crouch, J., Larson, E. 1976. Glacial advance in the Gulf of Alaska implied by ice-rafted material. In “Investigations of late Quaternary paleoceanography and paleclimatology.” Cline, R.M., Hays, J.D. Geological Society of America Memoir 145. 411–422.Google Scholar
Wahrhaftig, C. 1965 Physiographic Divisions of AlaskaU.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 482Google Scholar