SYLLOGEUS ia

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCES MUSEE NATIONAL DES SCIENCES NATURELLES

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bhhbhbbbbbb}'h}EEbEbbE:\352 No. 15

C,R. HARINGTON

QUATERNARY VERTEBRATE FAUNAS OF CANADA AND ALASKA

AND THEIR SUGGESTED CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE

EE

OTTAWA NATIONAL MUSEUMS OF CANADA

MUSÉES NATIONAUX DU CANADA

Syllogeus includes papers on natural sciences and closely related topics that are not
immediately appropriate for inclusion in other publications, and are issued in either
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La collection Syllogeus réunit un certain nombre d'articles sur les sciences naturelles
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Syllogeus Series No. 15 - (c) Crown Copyrights reserved - The National Museums of
Canada, Ottawa, February 1978. Printed in Canada

ISSN 0704-576X

FIGURE 1.

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Terr L

tory.

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2011 with funding from
California Academy of Sciences Library

http://www.archive.org/details/syllogeus15nati

QUATERNARY VERTEBRATE FAUNAS OF CANADA AND ALASKA

AND THEIR SUGGESTED CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE

C.R. Harington
National Museum of Natural Sciences

Ottawa

Syllogeus No. 15

National Museums of Canada Les Musées nationaux du Canada

National Museum of Natural Sciences Musée national des Sciences naturelles

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION

QUATERNARY VERTEBRATE FAUNAS IN CANADA

Atlantic Provinces

Québec
Ontario
Faunas
1. Toronto (Don Valley)
2. Toronto (Scarborough Bluffs)
3. Hamilton
4. Ottawa
Manitoba
Saskatchewan
Faunas
5. Oxbow Dam
6. Fort Qu'Appelle
i. “Saskatoon
8. Wellsch Valley
Alberta
Faunas

oc Empmresis
10. Bindloss
11.-19. Medicine Hat (Faunas 1-9)
20. Hand Hills
Z1. Cochrane

Sul

34
Sy
SA
43
43

TABLE OF CONTENTS 26

British Columbia

COMME

Northwest Territories

Faunas

227.

Acasta Lake

Yukon Territory

Faunas

Zr
24.
Ze
ZO
27e

Gold Run Creek

Upper Hunker Creek

Sixtymile River

Old Crow River (Locality 14N)
Old Crow River (Locality 44)

QUATERNARY VERTEBRATE FAUNAS IN ALASKA

Faunas

28.
29.
30.
Sale

Lost Chicken Creek

Fairbanks

SUV ANNEE

Cape Deceit

DISCUSSION AND SUMMARY

REFERENCES

APPENDIX - QUATERNARY VERTEBRATE FAUNAS OF

Faunas

© OO —J OO OT FW D OH

Kolyma
Kolyma
Kolyma
Kolyma
Kolyma

Lowland
Lowland
Lowland
Lowland
Lowland

Aldan River
Bolshoi Lyakhov Island
Proliv Dmitriya Lapteva

Berelekh River

NORTHEASTERN SIBERIA

(Alioshka Suite)
(Iedoma Suite)
(Utka Beds)
(0lyorSurte)
(Begunov Suite)

44
47

Sl

52

58
59
60
61
62

63

74
74
76
77

79

87

100

100
100
101
101
102
103
104
104
105

ABSTRACT

Thirty-one Canadian and Alaskan Quaternary vertebrate faunas, ranging
in age from about 1,800,000 to 5,000 years, are reviewed against a background
of some of the major characteristics of the ice age in northern North America,
and an attempt is made to outline their chronological sequence. For each
fauna a list of species is given, and the following points are dealt with
where possibie: suggested geological age, stratigraphy at the site,
palaeoenvironmental implications, and pertinent references. Where interest
seems to warrant it, single species or specimens are discussed. Radiocarbon
dates on bone from Pleistocene vertebrates or from associated organic material
are included.

In conclusion, significant features of the faunas are reviewed from oldest
to youngest and in relation to several faunas of similar age from northeastern
Siberia and the Great Plains of the United States. Early man is mentioned
briefly. Evidence suggests that people were present in the northern Yukon
about 27,000 years ago, and perhaps even earlier than 32,000 years ago in
southern Alberta.

Corrections

Page 44 -

lines 34-36. Because the 7,670 +170 B.P. (I-2244) date was based on a carbonate
sample, it is ConsSideredrteWbe unreliable (see Hassan, ALA., J.D. Termine, and

C.V. Haynes, Jr. 1977, Mineralogical studies on bone apatite and their implications
for radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon 19(3):364-374). Radiocarbon analysis of a
very small organic residue from the first sample indicates that the tusk is older
(211,600 B.P. @—-2244A))iiGWe-Blake, Jr., personal communication 1978),

lines 11-14. The date of about 7,000 B.P. now appears to be unreliable, and the
mammoth evidently died earlier than 11,600 B.P. (I-2244A). See above.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Drs. R.E. Morlan (Archaeological Survey of Canada),
D.M. Hopkins (United States Geological Survey), T.L. Péwé (Arizona State
University), and C.A. Repenning (United States Geological Survey) for their
helpful comments on parts of the manuscript. A great deal of the information
presented here has resulted from the hard and perceptive work of the late
Otto Geist and of Dr. R.D. Guthrie (University of Alaska) on the Quaternary
vertebrate faunas of Alaska, as well as that of Drs. A. MacS. Stalker
(Geological Survey of Canada) and C.S. Churcher (University of Toronto) on
Quaternary vertebrate faunas of the southwestern Canadian prairies, although

they are in no way responsible for my interpretation of their data.

Ink restorations of the Quaternary mammals were made, under my supervision,
by Miss Bonnie Dalzell and by Mr. C.H. Douglas, of the National Museum of
Natural Sciences. I wish to thank Mr. G. Anderson and his staff at the
National Museums of Canada for the photographs, and my fellow staff member

Mrs. Gail Rice for typing the manuscript.

This paper is dedicated to my colleagues at the Academy of Sciences of the
USSR. Drs. AW. Sher (Palaeontological Institute), E.A. Vangengeim
(Geological Institute) and N.K. Vereshchagin (Zoological Institute).

INTRODUCTION

The Quaternary has lasted for about two million years and has been
characterized in the northern regions by four main glaciations separated by
warmer phases, or interglacials, during which northern North America appeared
very much as it does today. In North America, the commonly recognized
glaciations, from earliest to latest, are known as: Nebraskan, Kansan,
Illinoian, and Wisconsin. The interglacials are: Aftonian, Yarmouth,
Sangamon and the present interglacial (postglacial), which began some 10,000

years ago.

Glacials and interglacials evidently occurred at about the same times in
both Eurasia and North America, but correlations between their fossil-bearing
deposits are still doubtful in many cases. In Canada, évidence for a series
of glacials and interglacials is clearly visible at Medicine Hat in southern
Alberta, where the sequence of ice-age deposits extends back to possibly
Kansan time. A sequence of glacial and interglacial deposits covering a
similar time span (pre-Yarmouth? to postglacial) at Eva Creek near Fairbanks,
Alaska, is of key importance in interpreting the Pleistocene history of
northwestern North America.

Much of man's evolution has taken place during the Quaternary, and he is
an important member of the ice-age fauna. Probably he first entered North
America from Siberia in small hunting groups following abundant game, such as
the woolly mammoth herds that were exploiting new and rich pastures to the
east of their Siberian ranges. However, it is possible that man could have

arrived in America by sea, on either rafts or boats.

Conditions for migration between Eurasia and North America were most
favourable during glaciations, when worldwide depressions in sea level
exposed land in the shallow Bering Strait region. The Bering Isthmus
connecting the two continents emerged at least four times during the
Quaternary, and was of greatest north--south breadth during the last two
glaciations. It was flooded by rising seas as the continental ice melted
during the interglacials, restoring Bering Strait much as rt exists today.

Many vertebrate species that are often considered to be native to North
America actually entered from Eurasia during the Pleistocene. Bison, muskox
(Ovtbos), moose (Alces), wapiti (Cervus), mountain sheep and brown bear are
typical examples. A few mammals that still survive in Asia, such as the yak
and the saiga antelope, penetrated no farther east than northwestern North
America, where they died out toward the close of the last glaciation.

Praeovtbos, a muskox, exemplifies a species, now extinct, that penetrated no

farther than northwestern North America. Some mammals that originated in
North America, such as camels and horses, migrated west into Eurasia from
North America. Others, like the woolly rhinoceros of Eurasia and the
prongbuck (Antilocapra americana) of North America, remained in the continents
where they originated.

It is worth noting that some animals originating in southern North America
or in South America — for example, short-faced bear (Arctodus), camel
(Camelops), ground sloth (Megalonyx), giant beaver (Castoroides), badger
(Taxidea) — reached the Alaska—Yukon region, probably during an interglacial,
but were not able to cross into Eurasia. Obviously, natural barriers of
various kinds were effective in restricting the dispersal of some vertebrates
between Eurasia and America during the Quaternary.

Expanding continental and alpine glaciers of northern North America not
only acted as occasional barriers to the movement of land and freshwater
vertebrates, but forced animals occupying central Canada and parts of Alaska
to move away from their original ranges. Ice spread out from the lowlands of
Keewatin and central Ungava, from the mountainous country of the Cordillera
(including the Brooks Range) in the west, and from the eastern Canadian
Arctic Islands. As a result, at glacial maxima, vertebrates occupred three or
four main survival areas, or refugia: the southern refugium, comprising
unglaciated parts of the northern United States; the Beringian refugium in
unglaciated areas of the Yukon and Alaska and extending across the Bering
Isthmus into eastern Siberia; the Banks Island refugium in the western
Canadian Arctic Islands; and the Pearyland refugium in northern Greenland.

Of lesser importance as refugia for vertebrates were nunataks, higher areas
of land not covered by ice, such as the Cypress Hills of southern Alberta and
Saskatchewan; Pacific offshore islands sometimes connected with the mainland;
and parts of the exposed Atlantic continental shelf.

Thus, fossils of tundra-adapted mammals such as the collared lemming
(Dicrostonyx torquatus) and muskox (Ovibos moschatus) have been found in the
northern United States, whereas their natural habitat is at present in the
Canadian Arctic and Greenland. In addition to the southern refugium, the

muskox also occupied the Beringian and Banks Island refugia.

On the other hand, some species that seem to have been adapted originally
to warmer climates moved far to the north during interglacial phases, as
shown by ground-sloth and camel fossils in the Yukon Territory and Alaska, and

beaver-cut sticks on Banks Island in the Northwest Territories.

Perhaps the most important migration route between Beringia and southern
North America was the "western corridor'', which runs along the eastern flanks
of the Rocky Mountains. This corridor appears to have been open to land and
freshwater vertebrates for relatively long periods of time. Although the
problem is still being investigated, Cordilleran ice from the west and
Keewatin ice from the east evidently joined for short periods at only a few
places in western Alberta. Probably the lack of suitable habitats for many
species along the length of the route was a more significant barrier than

temporary, local ice-blockades.

An interesting question arises concerning the migration of birds. As
glacial ice spread over their former nesting grounds during glacial maxima,
did most migratory species shift their flyways eastwards toward exposed tracts
of Atlantic continental shelf off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and westwards
toward Beringia and its broad freshly exposed arctic coastal plain? Or did
some shorten their flights and nest in the narrow tundra-like zone along the
southern margin of the continental ice? Presumably a forceable shift from
their extensive and apparently traditional nesting grounds in the Canadian
Arctic Islands to more marginal areas would have significantly reduced the

populations of some species.

Many dispersal routes appear to have been used by North American fresh-
water fishes to reoccupy formerly glaciated regions during the postglacial.
Routes most commonly used were to the southeast via the Yukon and the
Mackenzie systems and east into the central Arctic from the Beringian refugium;
to the north from the Pacific refuge (unglaciated northern Washington and
Oregon region); and northwestward from the Mississippi refuge (unglaciated

parts of the Mississippi drainage system).

Although much more work on Quaternary vertebrates in Canada and Alaska
remains to be done, a map of faunal localities (Figure 2) clearly shows the
relative barrenness of central Canada in this respect. A combination of
extensive Precambrian rock, severe climate, and heavy multiple glaciation
militated against occupation of that region by a great variety of vertebrates
and against adequate preservation of faunal remains that might have been
present. Similarly, heavy Cordilleran glaciation has undoubtedly resulted in
the destruction of many potential ice age vertebrate localities, although the
interior of British Columbia offers possibilities. The interglacial grassland
that occupied that region may have provided another favourable route for

migration of vertebrates between Beringia and southern North America.

Wisconsin glacial ice began melting back about 17,000 years ago, and most

of it had disappeared by 7,000 years ago. During periods when the ice paused

FIGURE 2. Maps showing localtties of Quaternary vertebrates of Canada and
Alaska that are described in the text. Inset map in lower corner
shows localtttes in western Alaska.

Key (with the names of Quaternary vertebrate faunal localtties capitalized):

1. Donkin, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. 2. Milford Station, Nova Seotia.

3. Debert, Nova Seotta. 4. Htllsborough, New Brunswick. 5. Jacquet River, New

Brunswick. 6. Satnt-Jogues, Québec. 7. Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, Québec. 8. Sept-

Iles, Québec. 9. Rivière aux Outardes, Québec. 10. Rtvtére-du-Loup, Québec.

11. Québec, Québec. 12. Daveluyvtlle, Québec. 13. Montréal, Québec. 14. Moose

Creek, Ontario. 15. OTTAWA, Ontario. 16. Hull, Québec. 17. Brockville, Ontarto.

18. Kingston, Ontario. 19. Sydenham, Ontario. 20. TORONTO, Ontario.

21. HAMILTON, Ontarto. 22. Welland, Ontario. 23. Waterford, Ontarto.

24. Mutrkirk, Ontario. 25. Parkhill, Ontario. 26. Woodbridge, Ontario.

27. Alliston, Ontario. 28. Orillia, Ontario. 29. Shegutandah, Manitoulin Island,
Ontario. 30. New Liskeard, Ontarto. 31. Moose River, Ontario. 32. Long Island,
Northwest Territories. 33. Winnipeg, Manitoba. 34. Brandon, Manitoba.

35. Minnedosa, Manitoba. 86. Rivers, Manitoba. 37. Grandview, Manitoba.

38. Benito, Manttoba. 39. OXBOW DAM, Saskatchewan. 40. Grenfell, Saskatchewan.
41. FORT QU'APPELLE, Saskatchewan. 42. Lillestrom, Saskatchewan. 43. Dundurn,
Saskatchewan. 44. SASKATOON, Saskatchewan. 45. WELLSCH VALLEY, Saskatchewan.
46. Kyle, Saskatchewan. 47. North Battleford, Saskatchewan. 48. Cold Lake,
Alberta. 49. Edmonton, Alberta. 50. Ponoka, Alberta. 51. Killam, Alberta.

52. Three Hills, Alberta. 53. HAND HILLS, near Delta, Alberta. 54. Site near
BINDLOSS, Alberta. 55. EMPRESS, Alberta. 56. MEDICINE HAT, Alberta.

57. Fletcher Site, Alberta. 58. Taber, Alberta. 59. Calgary, Alberta.

60. COCHRANE, Alberta. 61. Westwold, British Columbia. 62. Kamloops, British
Columbia. 63. Quesnel Forks, British Columbia. 64. Portage Pass, British
Columbia. 65. Finlay Forks, British Columbia. 66. Babine Lake, British
Columbta. 67. Yale, British Columbia. 68. Vancouver, British Columbia.

69. Saantch Peninsula, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. 70. Courtenay,
British Columbia. 71. Canyon Site, Yukon Territory. 72. DAWSON AREA, Yukon
Territory. 73. SIXTYMILE RIVER and Miller Creek, Yukon Territory. 74. LOST
CHICKEN CREEK, Alaska. 75. Whitestone River, Yukon Territory. 76. Old Crow
settlement, Yukon Territory. 77. OLD CROW BASIN, Yukon Territory.

78. Herschel Island, Yukon Territory. 79. Sagavanirktok River, Alaska.

80. ITkptkpuk River, Alaska. 81. Kuk River, Alaska. 82. Point Lay, Alaska.

83. CAPE DECEIT, Alaska. 84. Eschscholtz Bay, Alaska. 85. Richards Island,
Northwest Territories. 86. Rat River, Northwest Territories. 87. Arctic Red
River, Northwest Territortes. 88. Nicholson Peninsula, Northwest Territortes.
89. Batllte Islands, Northwest Territories. 90. ACASTA LAKE, Northwest
Terrttortes. 91. Lower Carp Lake, Northwest Territories. 92. Yellowknife,
Northwest Territories. 93. Grant Lake, Northwest Territortes. 94. Ferguson Lake,
Vietorta Island, Northwest Territories. 95. Pelly Bay, Northwest Territories.
96. Mastk River, Banks Island, Northwest Territories. 97. Worth Point, Banks
Island, Northwest Territortes. 98. Bernard River, Banks Island, Northwest
Territortes. 99. Ballast Brook, Banks Island, Northwest Territortes.

100. Cape James Ross, Melville Island, Northwest Territortes. 101. Goodsir
River, Bathurst Island, Northwest Territories. 102. Resolute Bay, Cornwallis
Island, Northwest Territories. 103. Cunningham River, Somerset Island,
Northwest Territories. 104. Truelove Inlet, Devon Island, Northwest Territories.
105. Strathcona Fiord, Ellesmere Island, Northwest Territories. 106. Alert,
Ellesmere Island, Northwest Territories. 107. Batza Tena, Alaska. 108. TOFTY,
Alaska. 109. Chatantka, Alaska. 110. FAIRBANKS AREA, Alaska. 111. Tratl Creek,
Alaska. 112. Nome, Alaska. 113. Inglutaltk River, Alaska. 114. St. Lawrence
Island, Alaska. 115. Nelson Island, Alaska. 116. St. Paul Island, Pribilof
Islands, Alaska. 117. Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. 118. Amchitka,

Aleuttan Islands, Alaska.

10

or occasionally re-advanced during its overall retreat, extensive moraines
were laid down on its margins. Another feature of the Quaternary in
northern North America is the sequence of vast glacial lakes that ringed the
Precambrian shield in postglacial time (for example, Lakes Barlow-Ojibway,
Agassiz, and McConnell). At times these lakes probably acted as barriers

to the northerly movement of land mammals while promoting the rapid
northwesterly distribution of some freshwater fishes.

Against this background of some major characteristics of the ice age in
northern North America, I wish to review Canadian and Alaskan Quaternary
vertebrate faunas. To make the review more complete, I have attempted to
outline the chronological sequence of the faunas (Figure 3). Because
northwestern North America and northeastern Siberia have been connected for
long periods in the Quaternary, I will discuss some of the relationships
between faunas, Several of the most important Quaternary vertebrate faunas

of northeastern Siberia are described in the Appendix.

The emphasis is on listing vertebrate species identified from bones in
fossil-bearing beds at ‘each Jocality. In most cases, specres from a singte
sedimentary layer or unit are treated collectively as a “fauna, but it ais
difficult to cell whether all “species identified from each unite actually
lived in the same area at the same time. This is especially true when the
remains consist of bone fragments from stream deposits in which reworking

and mixing of fossils of various ages is possible.

The faunas considered range in age from about 1,800,000 years to 5,000
years. For each fauna the following points are dealt with, where possible:
suggested geological age, stratigraphy at the site, palaeoenvironmental

implications, and pertinent references.

Where interest seems to warrant it, single species or specimens are
discussed. Radiocarbon dates on bone from Pleistocene vertebrates or from
associated organic material are included where relevant. Early man is
mentioned briefly. Recent evidence suggests that he was present in northern
North America about 27,000 years ago, and perhaps even earlier than 32,000

years ago.

TA

Postglacial

10,000 y

rs BP

to present

Wisconsin

Sangamon

Illinoian

Yarmouth

Kansan

Aftonian

Nebraskan

FIGURE 3.

12

Pit

23 24 25 26

30

20

19

31

Suggested chronologtcal sequence of Quaternary vertebrate
faunas of Canada and Alaska. Solid vertteal lines
indicate probable age; broken lines indicate possible age.

Numbers are those used tn the text to identify the faunas:

1. Toronto, Ontario (Don Formation); 2, Hamilton,
Ontario (Hamilton Bay); 4. Ottawa, Ontario (Green
Creek); 5, Oxbow Dam, Saskatchewan; 6. Fort
Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan (Echo Lake Gravels);

7. Saskatoon area, Saskatchewan (Floral Formatton) ;
8. Wellseh Valley, Saskatchewan; 9. Empress, Alberta;
10. Bindloss area, Alberta; 11. to 19. Medtetine Hat,
Alberta, faunas; 20, Hand Hills, Alberta (Hand Hills
Conglomerate); 21, Cochrane, Alberta (Btg Hill

Creek Formatton); 22. Acasta Lake, Northwest
Territortes; 23. Gold Run Creek, Yukon Territory
(Dawson area); 24. Upper Hunker Creek, Yukon
Territory (Dawson area); 25. Sixtymile River

(Dawson area); 26. Old Crow Rtver, Yukon Terrttory
(Locality 14N); 27. Old Crow River, Yukon

Terrttory (Locality 44); 28. Lost Chicken Creek,
Alaska; 29. Fatrbanks area, Alaska; 30. Sullivan
Pit, Alaska (Tofty Placer Distrtet); 31. Cape

Deceit, Alaska (Cape Decett Formation).

13

QUATERNARY VERTEBRATE FAUNAS IN CANADA
Atlantic Provinces

No important Quaternary vertebrate faunas are known from the Atlantic
Provinces. Heavy multiple glaciation of the region and the highly acidic
soils are partly responsible for this lack of faunal preservation. Although
beaver-cut sticks and unspecified mammal remains probably more than 33,800
years old (GSC-33) have been reported from a sinkhole in gypsum near Milford
Station, Nova Scotia (Prest 1970), the material has not been thoroughly
studied and its significance has yet to be assessed.

Scattered mastodon (Mammut americanum) teeth have been excavated or
ploughed up on mainland Nova Scotia and on Cape Breton Island (Piers 1912).
In 1936 a virtually complete mastodon skeleton was excavated by members of
the New Brunswick Provincial Museum from blue clay near Hillsborough,

New Brunswick (Squires 1966) (Figure 4). A bone from the skeleton has
yielded a radiocarbon date of 13,600 + 200 B.P. (GSC-1222).

Several mastodon and mammoth (Mammuthus sp.) teeth have been brought up in
fishermen's nets from Georges Bank and the continental shelf of the
northeastern United States, where submerged shorelines, peat deposits,
lagoonal shells and relict sands are present. Evidently Quaternary elephants
and other large mammals lived there during the low sea-level stage 25,000 to
6,000 years ago, when the Wisconsin ice sheet was near its maximum extent
(Whitmore et al. 1967).

Beaver-cut wood from organic silt and peat overlying glacial till near
Donkin, Cape Breton Island, indicates that beavers occupied that area a few
thousand years after the Wisconsin ice had vanished. The gnawed wood yielded
a radiocarbon date of 9,590 + 160 B.P. (I-2477).

One of the most important sites of early man in eastern North America is
at Debert, Nova Scotia (MacDonald 1968). Evidently a fairly large population
of Palaeo-Indians lived there about 10,600 years ago. Cooperative hunting at
the site may have concentrated on the woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus).
Unfortunately, high soil acidity destroyed all traces of faunal remains at the
site’.

Québec

Marine mammal remains of early postglacial age are relatively common in

raised beach deposits along the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Fossils of

14

ty

es
/
FIGURE 4.

VA
D Z
Mi ie

y YY
7 SW)

27

LA

/ I,
(pl

fl

Hf {7 Wit

ZG
LT T7
2

POP

os

Restoration of an American mastodon (Mammut americanum)

in an open spruce forest.

Ink sketch by Charles Douglas.

15

white whales (Delphinapterus leucas) and harp seals (Phoca (Pagophilus)
groenlandica) have been found in clays of Champlain Sea age at Montréal. A
ringed seal (Phoca (Pusa) hispida) deposited in place in Champlain Sea clay
near Hull probably lived during an early cold phase of the sea about 11,000
to 12,5000) years ago. Sltyjindicates: the presence of ctast acemmear the seas
western margin during winter and spring. The restored skeleton is mounted
and on display at the National Museum of Natural Sciences (Harington and
Sergeant 1972) (Figure 5). Postglacial walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) specimens
have been found at nine localities along the St. Lawrence River and the north
shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Harington 1975b).

In 1916 an almost complete skeleton of an adult white whale was excavated
from marine clay in eastern Montréal. Another exciting find was a nearly
complete skeleton of a common finback whale (Balaenoptera physalus), which
came from clay deposits about 275 feet (84 m) above sea level at Daveluyville
(Laverdiére 1950). Part of a bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) was
excavated at Sainte- Anne -des-Monts in 1949 (Cameron 1951). Remains of a
humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) were found at Métis. Only two
narwhal (Monodon monoceras) fossils have been reported from deposits of
probable Champlain Sea age. They are from the north and south shores of the
Baie des Chaleurs at Saint-Jogues, Québec and Jacquet River, New Brunswick
(Perkins 1910).

Postglacial fish remains from Québec are uncommon. A well-preserved skull
of a cod (Gadus sp.) was found in a clay nodule at "Goose River" (probably
near the mouth of the Riviére aux Outardes) (Gruchy 1971), and a cod mandible
was collected from gray marine silts in the Sept-Îles region. Unidentified
fish vertebrae have been reported from Riviére-du-Loup (Dawson 1893).

Ontario

The most important Quaternary vertebrate faunas known from Ontario are
located near Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa.

The history of the Champlain Sea (Elson 1968, Prest 1970) and its
vertebrate fauna (Harington 1971d, 1972, 1977; see Wagner 1967 for additional
references) merit a brief description. This sea was an important late-
Quaternary event that affected both Ontario and Québec. As the Wisconsin ice
sheet retreated north of the St. Lawrence valley, the Atlantic Ocean flooded
this depressed lowland. When the sea reached its maximum extent about 12,000
years ago, it covered at least 20,500 square miles (53,100 sq. km), including
the area between Québec City and Brockville as well as the lower Ottawa River
and Lake Champlain valleys.

16

: dé pe. +5
PS PR er ni

FNGURESS: Restored skeleton of a ringed seal (Phoca (Pusa) hispida)

from Champlain Sea deposits near Hull, Québec.

17

Whales, particularly those adapted to cool inshore conditions, such as the
white (Delphinapterus leucas), humpback (Megaptera novaengliae), howhead
(Balaena mysticetus), and common finback (Balaenoptera physalus), and the
harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) penetrated the Champlain Sea and
exploited its food organisms, as did seals adapted to breeding on fast ice and
pack ice, such as the harp (Phoca (Pagophilus) groenlandica), the ringed
(Phoea (Pusa) hispida), the bearded (Erignathus barbatus), and possibly the
bladdernose (Cystophora cristata).

Bone from a well-preserved white whale skeleton excavated at a sand pit
in southern Ottawa yielded a date of 10,420 + 150 B.P. (GSC-454). This whale
was probably washed up on a beach of the Champlain Sea during an early
formative stage of the Ottawa Delta. It has-been fully restored and is
displayed as a composite specimen in the National Museum of Natural Sciences.
Radiocarbon analysis of bone from several vertebrae of a white whale from
Pakenham, Ontario gave a date of 10,300 + 80 B.P. (GSC€-2418). Bone cored
from the centre of the humerus of a bowhead whale from a high (575 feet (175 m)
above sea level) beach of the Champlain Sea near White Lake, Ontario yielded
abradtiocarbon date of 11400) 90) BPs (GSC-2269))-

Remains of land vertebrates — such as hare, presumably the snowshoe hare
(Lepus americanus), from clay deposits at Montréal, eastern chipmunk (Tamias
strtatus) from marine gravels and sands near Moose Creek, Ontario, and
American marten (Martes americana) from near Ottawa — suggest the presence of
boreal and hardwood forest along the edges of the receding sea. The skull and
part of the vertebral column and forelimbs of the marten are well preserved in
both halves of a split nodule from Green Creek (Figure 6) (Harington 1972).

Birds, possibly shore birds, fed along the sea beaches. They are
represented by imprints of feathers in Green Creek nodules, most of a vertebra
from sands in southern Ottawa, and unspecified bones from the Leda Clay at
Montréal.

Fish specimens such as capelin (Mallotus villosus), sculpin (Artediellus
unetnatus), three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), lake trout
(Salvelinus (Crtsttvomer) namaycush), and possibly smelt (Osmerus mordax) and
lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) are preserved in clay nodules from Green Creek,
indicating that a cool marine coastal habitat fed by streams from nearby deep
lakes existed near Ottawa about 10,000 years ago.

Based largely on evidence from the shells of marine molluscs (Elson 1969,
Wagner 1970), the early Champlain Sea environment was probably similar to that
of the Gulf of St. Lawrence today, where most vertebrate species that occupied

18

FIGURE 6. Right side of the skull of an American marten (Martes

americana) preserved in a calcareous clay nodule of

Champlatn Sea age from Green Creek near Ottawa, Ontarto.

19

the inland sea are still found. During its later phases, the Champlain Sea
became warmer and less saline until it reached the freshwater phase

(Lampsilis Lake), which may have occurred between about 10,000 and 8,000 years
ago. Finally, the Lampsilis Lake drained and the landscape assumed its

present character:

Of the mammoth (Mammuthus sp.) and mastodon (Mammut amertcanum) remains
found in Ontario, those of the mastodons are by far the most abundant, and
present an interesting problem. At least 62 occurrences of mastodons are
known from the province; they are mainly from southern Ontario and are of
postglacial age, between 12,900 and 9,000 years old according to some
radiocarbon dates. Dreimanis (1967, 1968) has produced evidence to show that
mastodons were especially adapted to open spruce woodlands or spruce forests,
and has suggested that their extinction in southern Ontario was initiated by
rapidly increasing dryness 10,000 to 11,000 years ago, which caused the spruce
forests to retreat to moister lowlands and finally led to their disappearance.
He believes that growth of an intervening belt of pine and hardwood forest on
the better-drained morainic areas in central Ontario tended to prevent the
mastodons from migrating to the more northerly spruce forests, and left them
to die out among the ever-decreasing southern spruce "islands". However, King's
discovery (1973) that mastodons occupied pine-parkland in the Ozarks of western
Missouri and were capable of surviving away from spruce forests argues against
Dreimanis's hypothesis. Probably the best American mastodon specimen from
Ontario is a partial skeleton collected near Welland in 1912. It has been
restored and mounted and is displayed in the Royal Ontario Museum (Russell
1965).

Most of the skeleton of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) was
excavated from clay beneath a 2- to 3-foot (0.6 to 0.9 m) layer of peat near
Muirkirk (Lambe 1898). The specimen is in the National Museums of Canada
collections. Organic material with a woolly-mammoth tooth buried deeply in
gravels near Woodbridge yielded a radiocarbon date of 45,000 + 900 B.P.
(GSC-1181), which indicates a mid-Wisconsin age for the mammoth (Churcher
1968b).

Scattered remains of wapiti (Cervus elaphus) have been found in postglacial
deposits at such places as Sydenham, Kingston, Toronto, and Waterford. Grizzly
bears (Ursus aretos) were present in early postglacial time too, for a well
preserved skull was found in beach deposits near Orillia. Radiocarbon
analysis of a limb-bone fragment associated with the skull yielded a date of
11,700 + 250 B.P. (Peterson 1965). Fossils from Toronto and Woodbridge
indicate that grizzly bears lived in Ontario even earlier — in the Sangamon
interglacial (or early Wisconsin) and mid-Wisconsin time respectively (Churcher

20

and Morgan 1976).

When they are more thoroughly explored, the Sangamon interglacial deposits
in the Moose River Basin of northern Ontario may provide an insight into
Quaternary vertebrate faunas of that region. Skinner (1973) collected a
cyprinid-fish skeletal fragment and beaver-gnawed sticks from these deposits
near Moose River Crossing. A mastodon tooth with jaw has been reported from
the bed of the Moose River in the same area (Bell 1898).

A freshwater-drum specimen (Aplodinotus grunntens) was ploughed up from
the former lake bed of Glacial Lake Barlow-Ojibway near New Liskeard. These
fishes may have entered Glacial Lake Barlow-Ojibway from the west during the
Gimli phase of Glacial Lake Agassiz about 8,000 years ago (Harington 197le).

Soon after 12,500 years ago, as the continental ice sheet melted back,
small bands of Palaeo-Indians, probably caribou hunters, moved into the tundra
and boreal-forest landscape of southern Ontario. Approximately 50 of their
fluted spear-points have been reported as isolated surface finds in that part
of the province. However, few early Palaeo-Indian campsites have been
detected in southern Ontario. One site, probably dating between 10,570 B.P.
(GSC=1006, 1028) and 9,750 + 135 B.P. (11-5786), which has produced major
portions of more than 80 fluted points and knives and many scrapers and
gravers, was excavated near Parkhill (Roosa 1977). Storck (1974) also
mentions a possible site near Alliston. Several late Palaeo-Indian quarry
campsites are known from the northern margins of the Great Lakes (MacDonald
1971). The Sheguiandah site on Manitoulin Island has been used by various
peoples for over 10,000 years. Wright (1972) has summarized much of this

information.

Faunas

1. Toronto, Ontario (Don Valley Brickyard — Don Formation)

Fishes - Ietalurus punctatus (channel catfish), Esox sp. (pike or

muskellunge).

Mammals - Marmota monax (woodchuck), Castoroides ohtoensis (giant
beaver), Ursidae* (?Ursus arectos) (bear, possibly a brown bear),
Proboscidea* (mammoth or mastodon), Odocoileus virgtntanus
(white-tailed deer), Cervalces borealis* (moose-like animal,

Bison, sp.* (baxson)c

*From beds tentatively correlated with the Don Formation. However, Karrow
believes that they may be of early-Wisconsin age (Churcher and Morgan 1976).

21

Suggested Age - Sangamon interglacial. Organic material from the
Don Formation has yielded a radiocarbon date of more than
46,000 B.P. (L-409).

Remarks - Fossils are from a 25-foot-thick layer (7.6 m) of stratified
cross-bedded clay and sand underlain by the York Till of
Illinoian age and overlain by the Scarborough Formation of early-
Wisconsin age. Basal parts of the Don Formation contain pollen
of a warm flora, which may have required for growth an average
temperature as much as 5°F (2.8°C) warmer than at present
(Terasmae 1960). Study of mollusc shells, wood, leaves, pollen
and diatoms from the deposits indicates that the Don Formation
was deposited in a freshwater estuary at the edge of a large
lake that was at least 60 feet (18 m) higher than the present
Lake Ontario. The kinds of fishes represented suggest a turbid
freshwater environment, whereas the mammals indicate a partly
forested area with patches of grassland and lakes or ponds.

References - Bensley 1913; Coleman 1913, 1933; Crossman and Harington
1970; Karrow 1969; Terasmae 1960; Terasmae, Karrow and Dreimanis
INS) Ae

2. Toronto, Ontario (Scarborough Bluffs)

Mammals - Tamias striatus (eastern chipmunk), Microtus pennsylvantcus

(meadow vole), Urocyon cinereoargenteus (grey fox).

Suggested Age - Postglacial. Associated charcoal fragments yielded
radiocarbon dates of 5,240 + 100 B.P. (S-115B) and 5,550 + 70
Bebe (S=1aSA)s

Remarks - Fossils are from a band of dark organic soil 4 feet (1.2 m)
beneath turf covering an outwash fan that overlies a wave-cut
bench of probable Lake Iroquois age. Undisturbed sands, silts
and fine gravels overlie the fossiliferous soil, which seems to
be alluvial in origin. The mammals represented suggest a moist,
partly forested area with grassy patches (like that proposed for
Hamilton; see Fauna 3). Mixed forest was prevalent according to
species identified from charcoal, with fossils of Pinus strobus
(white pine), Acer saccharum or A. nigrum (maple), and probably
Fagus grandifolia (beech). Shells of gastropods in and below
the organic soil support the presence of a mixed deciduous—
conifer woodland, and are consistent with the warm climate

(‘climatic optimum") known to have existed about 5,000 years ago.

Reference - Churcher and Karrow 1963.

22

3. Hamilton, Ontario (Hamilton Bay site near Coote's Paradise)

Busnes = Zisoz sp. (Mprekerell)

Amphibians - Rana sp. (frog)
Birds - Atx sponsa (wood duck), Strix varia (barred owl), Agelatus
phoentceus (red-winged blackbird), Quiscalus qutseula (common

erackie)r

Mammals - Blarina brevicauda (short-tailed shrew), Seturus
carolinensis (grey squirrel), Tamtascturus hudsonteus (red
squirrel), Tamias striatus (eastern chipmunk), Glaucomys
sabrinus (flying squirrel), Peromyscus sp. (white-footed mouse),
Ondatra 2ztbethtcus (muskrat), Microtus pennsylvanicus (meadow

vole), Microtus ptnetorum (pine vole), Vulpes vulpes (red fox).

Suggested Age - Possibly 5,000 to 6,000 B.P.

Remarks - Fossils are from a medium sand to fine gravel layer under-
iv inic ideposaitsm om co skeet (Oh om comely. Zam) mchnck vos: athe s-tommens
shoreline of Lake Iroquois. The fossil layer has been
interpreted as an inshore lake-bottom deposit that became
covered with beach material as the lake level dropped. Fish
and amphibian remains suggest a lake-margin habitat, bird
fossils a moist mixed-woodland, and mammals a moist mixed-forest

habitat with some grassy patches.

References - Churcher and Karrow 1963; Wetmore 1958,

4. Ottawa, Ontario (near the mouth of Green Creek)

Fishes - Mallotus villosus (capelin), Artediellus uneinatus (sculpin),
Cyclopterus lumpus* (lumpfish), Osmerus mordax* (smelt)
Gasterosteus aculeatus (three-spined stickleback), Salveltnus

(Cristivomer) namayeush (lake trout).
Birds = Unidentified species. Possibly a shore bird 1s represented.

Mammals - Martes amertcana (American marten), Phoca (Pagophtlus)

groenlandtca (harp seal), Phoca sp. (seal).

Suggested Age - Postglacial. Probably about 10,000 B.P., when the
shoreline of the Champlain Sea was in the Ottawa area, and
during the formation of the Ottawa Delta.

*Reported by Dawson (1893). Better fossil evidence of this species is required

25

Remarks - Fossils are from calcareous clay nodules weathering out of
Leda Clay of Champlain Sea age. Two distinct bodies of clay
exist at Green Creek; the older is undoubtedly marine and was
deposited in the Champlain Sea, but the nature and age of the
younger is controversial. Gadd (1961) favours a freshwater
origin for the younger clay. The nodules contain many shells
indicating a subarctic marine environment. The vertebrate
fauna preserved in the nodules is indicative of a cool marine
coastal environment with patches of coniferous forest nearby.
More research is required on plant and insect remains in the
nodules to obtain a clearer idea of the palaeoenvironment.

References - Dawson 1893; Gadd 1961; Gruchy 1968; Harington 1971d,
1972, 1977; Harrington and Sergeant 1972; Sternberg 1951;
Wagner 1967.

Manitoba

No Quaternary vertebrate faunas are known from this province, although
many scattered finds have been made, particularly of the extinct western bison
(Bison bison occidentalis) in postglacial deposits of southern Manitoba
(Pettipas 1971). These bison, the long-horned ancestors of the modern plains
bison (B. b. bison), ranged over southwestern Manitoba about 9,000 years ago
and evidently were hunted by Palaeo-Indians.

Leith (1949) and Young (1966) have reviewed ice-age elephant finds in
Manitoba. Most specimens represent the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigentus),
but an upper third molar from Rivers is best referred to the Columbian mammoth
(M. columbt). These fossils are concentrated in the south-central

(Brandon-Winnipeg) and western (Benito) parts of the province.

A skull fragment of a tundra muskox (Ovibos moschatus) was collected from
gravels near Grandview in 1963 (Figure 7). Bone from the specimen yielded a
radiocarbon date of 8,620 + 190° B:P. (1=1623)." The fossil may represent
muskox herds that moved north from a refugium south of the Wisconsin ice
sheet, feeding in the tundra-like zone bordering “the retreating ice until they
reached their present range on the Northwest Territories mainland (Harington
1970a).

An interesting sequence of Quaternary deposits is exposed near Minnedosa.
There, bones of ground squirrel (Spermophilus sp.) were recovered from an
ancient burrow in a silt bed 5 feet (1.5 m) thick that was overlain by 61 feet
(18.6 m) of sediment, including three glacial tills, and underlain by 16 feet
(4.9 m) of till. Plant fragments associated with the bones yielded a

24

FIGURE 7.

Upper surface of a tundra muskox (Ovibos moschatus)

crantal fragment from postglactal depostts near

Grandview, Manitoba.

25

radiocarbon date of more than 31,300 B.P. (GSC-297). The fossil-bearing silt
is probably of early-Wisconsin interstadial or Sangamon interglacial age
(Klassen, Delorme and Mott 1967).

Evidence for early man in Manitoba has been discussed by Mayer-Oakes (1967)
and Pettipas (1970).

Saskatchewan

A few productive vertebrate localities have been discovered in southern
Saskatchewan. The Wellsch Valley fauna is the oldest, Fort Qu'Appelle and
Saskatoon may be of similar age (probably Sangamon interglacial, but possibly
Wisconsin interstadial), and Oxbow Dam is the youngest.

Many scattered remains of mammoths and a few of mastodons have been
reported from Saskatchewan (Sternberg 1963). The Kyle mammoth, one of the
most interesting specimens, was collected from contorted lake sediments near
Kyle in 1964, and was relatively complete but poorly preserved. Radiocarbon
dates suggest that active ice had left the Kyle area more than 14,000 years
ago. Radiocarbon analysis of bone indicates that the mammoth died toward the
close o£ the Wisconsin glaciation (12,000 + 200 B.P. (S-246))).

A rich site deserving further investigation is located near Dundurn. In
1924 many chert tools and flakes and some shell and bone artifacts were
excavated from a 6-foot-thick (1.8 m) layer of sand containing freshwater
gastropod shells, which was overlain by 4 feet (1.2 m) of sticky clay and
underlain by tough yellowish clay (Parks 1925). All the fragments of bone
broken by man were stained black. Vertebrate remains from the site include:
Pisces (undetermined fish vertebrae), Rodentia (undetermined rodent mandibles),
Cants lupus (wolf), Taxidea taxus (badger), ?Rangifer sp. (caribou),
Anttlocapra amertcana (prongbuck), Bison sp. (bison). The basal yellowish
clay may be a till of late-Wisconsin age, in which case the specimens would
be postglacial. The new genus "Neomeryx finni" reported from this site is now
considered to be synonymous with Antilocapra americana, the prongbuck
(Simpson 1945).

An interesting, but problematical, specimen of a sciaenid fish with
Similarities to Pogonias (a drum adapted to warm marine conditions in the Gulf
of Mexico) was collected from gravels over 35,000 years old that are exposed
near North Battleford (Harington 197le). Uyeno and Miller (1963) record
remains of cyprinid fishes (Cyprinidae) from deposits near Lillestrom
estimated to be 10,000 years old.

26

The discovery of a bone projectile point or foreshaft at Grenfell suggests

that Palaeo-Indians hunted big game near the margin of the retreating

Wisconsin ice sheet in southeastern Saskatchewan.

mammoth or mastodon bone, was excavated from postglacial deposits probably
less than 10,000 years old (Wilmeth 1968).

Faunas

5. Oxbow Dam, Saskatchewan (one mile [1.6 km] south of Oxbow)

Amphibians - ?Rana sp. (frog)

Mammals - Homo sp. (man — indirect evidence from artifacts), Cants

latrans (coyote), Canis lupus (wolf), Vulpes velox (kit fox),

?Cervus elaphus (?wapiti), Bison sp. (bison).

Suggested Age - Postglacial. Charcoal from an ash bed directly

The implement, carved from

below the zone where most of the vertebrates were found yielded

radvocarbon dates of SALON EN? SORT PE

Remarks - Most bones and artifacts are from a thin layer of ash at

the base of a dark silty unit that also contained pelecypod
Shells. This unit 1sStoyverlain by about I foot (305 em) or
blurt site capped by 8 inches (2085 En) of sont, sand underlain
by an unknown thickness of buff silt. Vertebrate species,
particularly the bison and kit fox, suggest a grassland
environment, while the mollusc and frog remains indicate the

presence of wet areas, perhaps ponds or streams nearby.

Reference - Nero and McCorquodale 1958.

6. Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan (Bliss Gravel Pit — Echo Lake Gravels)

Mammals - Rodentia (rodent), Canis sp. (?wolf), Aretodus stmus*

(short-faced bear), Taxtdea taxus (badger), Mammuthus columbt

(Columbian mammoth), Equus scotti (Scott's horse), Camelops cf.

hesternus (camel), Cervalces rooseveltt (= Alces lattfrons?)
(moose-like animal), Btson latifrons (giant bison), Symbos

eavtfrons (extinct muskox).

*From deposits near Lebret, across the valley from Fort Qu'Appelle, that I
tentatively correlate with the Echo Lake Gravels.

2}

ie

Suggested Age - Probably of Sangamon interglacial or, at the latest,

Wisconsin interstadial age. Mollusc shells from sand overlying
the fossiliferous gravels have yielded a radiocarbon date of
>50),,000 B-PA(GSC- 987)

Remarks - Vertebrate fossils are from a series of gravel beds (Echo

Lake Gravels) overlain by sand and thick till, presumably of
Wisconsin age, and underlain by another thick till. The gravels
may be outwash material laid down at the close of an interglacial
or interstadial by an advancing ice sheet that deposited the
Floral Formation. Most of the mammals represented suggest a
grassland habitat. The badger is a particularly good

grassland indicator. The moose-like animal may indicate
occasional pockets of moist woodland, but» wood remains in the
Echo Lake Gravels are generally not large and suggest a shrubby
grassland rather than a parkland environment with many trees.
Aquatic molluscs found with the extinct-muskox skull (Figure 8)
probably occupied a mesotrophic to eutrophic body of water at

a depth of 10 to 20 feet (3.1 to 6.1m)... Terrestrial motluses
indicate the presence of some trees and a moister climate than
now, in addition to some muddy lake or river banks. Therefore
the evidence points toward a grassland environment with
scattered shrubs, a few trees, and persistent ponds and streams.

References - Christiansen 1960, 1972; Harington 1973a; Khan 1970;

McCorquodale 1957; Russell 1956.

askatoon area, Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Riddell and other sites —

Floral Formation)

Mammals - Rodentia (rodent), Taxtdea taxus* (badger), Mammuthus

ecolumbt (Columbian mammoth), Equus seotti (Scott's horse),
Camelops sp. (camel), Cervus elaphus (wapiti), Bison sp.
(bison).

Suggested Age - Probably of Sangamon interglacial age or possibly of

Wisconsin interstadial age. Stratigraphic studies and
radiocarbon dates indicate that the Floral Formation is more
than 34,000 years old (S-426). The similarity of the Fort
Qu'Appelle and Saskatoon faunas is remarkable, and could indicate
a general similarity in age.

*The specimen on which this identification is based cannot now be located in

collections of the Royal Ontario Museum.

28

FIGURE 8.

Crantum with horncores of the extinet muskox (Symbos

cavifrons) from gravels of probable Sangamon

interglactal age at Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan.

29

8.

*C:

30

Sis

Remarks - At the Saskatoon Site, sands containing the vertebrate

fossils are 20 to 30 feet (6.1 to 9.1m) thick and are enclosed
by two tills of the Floral Formation. This formation is
overlain by till of the Battleford Formation (late Wisconsin)
and surficial stratitied drift) (silts and clays), sand
underlain by sand and till of the Sutherland Group. Fold and
wedge structures in the fossil-bearing sand indicate that it
was probably laid down during the retreat of the glacier that
deposited the Floral Formation. The vertebrates are similar
to those from Fort Qu'Appelle, and suggest a basic grassland
environment. Shells of a pelecypod and of six species of
gastropod molluscs from the Floral Formation sands indicate a
fluvial environment. The mollusc faunas of both Fort
Qu'Appelle and Saskatoon localities may tell more about the
environments of deposition than about the environments
occupied by the vertebrate faunas.

References - Christiansen 1968; Harington 1973b; Lammers 1968;

Pohorecky and Wilson 1968; Russell 1943.

Welll'sch Valley, Saskatchewan (S0°39'S5S0UN, 107252 "30"W)

Mammals - Xenarthra (ground sloth), ?Hypolagus limnetus (marsh

rabbit), Cynomys ?meadensis* (prairie dog), Spermophilus sp.*
(ground squirrel), ?Oryzomys sp.* (rice rat), Thomomys sp. near
T. umbrinus* (pocket gopher), 7. talpoides * (northern pocket
gopher), Synaptomys (Mictomys) kansasensis* (Kansas bog lemming),
Pliomys cf. deeringensis* (Deering meadow mouse), Microtus
decettensis* (Cape Deceit vole), Borophagus diversidens (bone-
eating dog), Lynx cf. rufus (bobcat-like carnivore), Mammuthus
cf. meridionalis (southern mammoth), Equus pacifieus (Pacific
horse), E. compltcatus (horse), Platygonus sp. (flat-headed
peccary), Camelops sp. (camel), Antilocapridae (prongbuck),
Ovibovini* (muskox).

Suggested Age - Late Aftonian interglacial, according to the known

chronological range of the mammals. It is certainly older than
the fauna considered to be of Kansan age at Medicine Hat,
Alberta. Recent palaeomagnetic evidence indicates that the
fossiliferous unit was deposited about the time of the Olduvai
Event, approximately 1.7 million years ago (A. MacS. Stalker,
personal communication, 1976).

Churcher, personal communication, 1975.

Remarks = | Fossils are from a 55-foot-thick (16.2 m)elayer of stony.
silt, clay, sand and gravel that was probably deposited during
intermittent flash floods. It contains stones from the
Canadian Shield. This unit is overlain by four or more tills
with beds of sand, gravel, silt and clay between them that so
far have not yielded fossils. The top till is probably of
late-Wisconsin age. The fossiliferous unit is underlain
unconformably by Upper Cretaceous bedrock. Current bedding
indicates that most of the unit was deposited by streams
flowing from the south or southeast. Rodent, horse, camel and
prongbuck fossils suggest a grassland environment. The fauna
may have lived in an interglacial environment at least as warm
as the present one. The presence of Microtus decettensts and
Pliomys cf. deeringensis are the first reports of these taxa in
North America except for those from Cape Deceit, Alaska. They
suggest a southward migration from the Beringian region during
interglacial time and a roughly similar age for the Cape Deceit
and Wellsch Valley faunas. A single molar tooth of Merychippus
tnstgnts found with these faunal remains is considered to be
intrusive because of its different State o£ fossilization:.

References - Stalker 1971; Stalker and Churcher 1972.
Alberta

A number of ice-age vertebrate faunal localities have been found in
Alberta. The Medicine Hat area is most important, for fossils from various
stratigraphic levels enable us to reconstruct a picture of successive faunas
extending from Kansan to postglacial time. Approximately 2 types of birds
and 29 kinds of mammals are represented from deposits of probable Sangamon
age at Medicine Hat. It is one of the richest Pleistocene vertebrate faunas
in Canada. Faunas from Empress and Cochrane are probably late Wisconsin in

age.

Pleistocene mammal remains have been collected for many years near Calgary.
Bison and mammoth are occasionally reported from excavations in or near the
city, and remains of Mexican wild ass (Equus (Asinus) converstdens), camel
(Camelops sp.), and bison (Btson bison antiquus) have been derived from
postglacial gravels there (Wilson 1974:39; M. Wilson, personal communication,
1975). Radiocarbon analysis of bison bone yielded dates of 8,080 + 150 B.P.
(GSC-1209) and 8,145 + 320 B.P. (GX-2104). At the Milan Site near Three Hills,
abundant remains of a herd of Bison bison occidentalis and part of the
skeleton of a wapiti (Cervus elaphus) (Figure 9) have been excavated from clay

and sand underlying till-like material (Shackleton and Hills 1973).

Si

FIGURE 9. Front view of a postglactal wapiti (Ce

with antlers from ts, Alberta
Whitish areas have been restored. Photograph by D.M. Shae

32

Radiocarbon analyses of bison bones have yielded dates of 9,630 + 300 B.P.
(GSC=1894) and 9,670 = 160 B.P. (1-8579). What appears to be a glacial till
overlying bones of postglacial age presents a problem that requires careful
investigation by Pleistocene geologists.

The Edmonton area has also produced many Pleistocene mammal fossils. Part
of the skull of a tundra muskox (Ovibos moschatus) was collected there in
1898. Other Alberta Ovibos fossils have been reported from surface gravel
deposits at Ponoka and Cold Lake. Gravel pits in eastern Edmonton (Beverly)
have yielded remains of the following mammals: Mammuthus sp. (mammoth),
Equus sp. (horse), ?Camelus sp. (camel), and three species of bison (Bison
Latifrons, B. crasstcornts and B. bison oecctdentalis). Fuller and Bayrock
(1965) suggest that these species existed in the vicinity of Edmonton some
8,000 years ago. However, there are difficulties in identifying and dating
these specimens. Churcher (1968a) has referred six horse metacarpals from
the Beverly Gravel Pits to Equus (Astnus) converstdens, and I would refer the
?Camelus phalanx to Camelops hesternus. Further, it seems unlikely that
three different species of bison occupied the same area at the same time.
Perhaps the Bison crassicornis and B. lattfrons specimens were somehow
derived from older gravels. The B. bison occidentalis cranial fragment,
which has two important characters suggesting a closer affinity to
Bae ancTtquus, LS probably or postglacial age. ihe horncore referred to
B. tattfrons (certainly atypical of that species in its relative shortness
and high degree of curvature) and the B. ecrasstcornis cranial fragment are
probably Illinoian to Wisconsin in age.

In 1974, J.A. Westgate sent me a number of interesting specimens from the
Apex Gravel Pit near Edmonton. They shed additional light on this problem.
Biostratigraphic evidence from this pit indicates that bison with very robust
horns (Bison cf. allent) and medium-sized horses like Equus scotti lived in
the region before it was glaciated, and were succeeded by smaller-horned
bison (B. crassicornis) and ass-like horses (Equus (Asinus) cf. converstdens)
after the area had been first affected by continental glaciation. A
specimen of the extinct muskox Symbos cavifrons from a correlative stratum
at a nearby gravel pit (Harington 1975a) indicates that this species lived

about the same time as B. ecrasstcornts and E. (Astnus) cf. conversidens.

Remains of amphibians are rarely found in Pleistocene or early
postglacial deposits in Canada. Therefore, it is interesting to note that
large numbers of toad skeletons (approximately 50 were collected in an hour)
came from fine to medium-grained impure sand of postglacial age near Killam.
Both the spadefoot toad (Sceaphiopus hammondi bombifrons) and the great plains
toad (Bufo cognatus) from the site are about 100 miles (160 km) north of their

355

present ranges. They probably lived near Killam during the postglacial warm
period that existed about 7,000 to 4,000 years ago, when the prairie (to

which these species are adapted) extended farther northwards than it does at
present (Bayrock 1964). I speculate that these toads became concentrated in

a decreasing area of moistness before finally succumbing to extreme drought.

In 1961, important human skeletal remains were discovered by a field party
under A. MacS. Stalker, of the Geological Survey of Canada (Langston and
Oschinsky 1963, Stalker 1969a). Cranial fragments, part of a lower jaw
containing two unerupted deciduous molars, and a free second-molar cap came
from a cliff on the east side of the Oldman River about 3 miles (4.8 km)
north of Taber (Figures 10a, b). Some posteranial material was also
collected. Evidently the bones are those of a child about four months old
(Irving 1971). Although the bones have not been dated directly, evidently
they were found about 60 feet (18.3 m) below the prairie surface, and were
derived from a layer of sand beneath a glacial till. As the till was laid
down by an ice sheet that spread over the area some 22,000 years ago, it
seems that the bones are at least that old. Correlation with other bluffs
along the Oldman River suggests that the human remains are more than 32,000
years old (Stalker 1969a, 1977).

Palaeo-Indians evidently killed and butchered bison (Bison sp.) at the
Fletcher Site in southern Alberta. Alberta and Scottsbluff projectile points
were derived from the bone layer, which was deposited between 11,000 and

7,000 years ago according to stratigraphic evidence (Forbis 1968).

A cobble chopper imbedded in the braincase of an extinct bison (Bison
bison occidentalis) was found at the Bayrock Site near Taber in alluvium
approximately 250 feet (76 m) above the Oldman River. Wood from this deposit
yielded a radiocarbon date of 11,000 + 250 B.P. (S-68). This artifact and
bison braincase are displayed in the Drumheller Museum. Other stone artifacts,
including an Alberta point, were scattered among fragments of bison bone
derived from a blue-stained occupation layer near the top of the section.
Wormington and Forbis (1965) have summarized other information on Palaeo-
Indians in Alberta. Reeves (1969) provides a summary of the
palaeoenvironments and palaeocultures of southern Alberta.

Faunas

9. Empress, Alberta (50°57"50"N, 110°200' SO"W)

Mammals - Mammuthus imperator (imperial mammoth), Mammuthus

primigentus (woolly mammoth), Equus (Astnus) conversidens

34

FIGURE 10a.

erantal bones

view of the (dark) of a

Setting

(Homo sp.) ehtld about four months old.
bones into a plaster cast (white) of an older chi

skull was done to show the relative position of the
fossil bone. These rematns from near Taber, Albe

may be more

human

the
Che

Ld's

ea Le]

35

FIGURE 10b.

36

(Mexican wild ass), Equus scotti (Scott's horse), Rangifer sp.
(caribou), Camelops cf. hesternus (camel), Btson bison cf.

oeetdentalis (western bison).

Suggested Age - Late Wisconsin. Radiocarbon analyses of unspecified
bone fragments from the site yielded dates of 14,200 + 1,120 B.P.
CGSC=1199) sand 203400 £°520°B. P. (GSC-1387) -

Remarks - Fossils are from a sand and gravel terrace approximately
49 feet (15 m) above river level on the south bank of the Red
Deer River. They were deposited in the bed of a fast-flowing
stream. The presence of caribou and woolly mammoth suggests
that the fauna occupied a cool grassland or tundra-like
environment. The presence of the imperial mammoth in this fauna
appears to be anomalous.

References - Lowden and Blake 1975; Stalker 1971.
10. Bandloss area, Alberta (S0°S7'"N, 110°08'NW)

Mammals - Panthera leo atrox (American lion), Mammuthus tmperator

(imperial mammoth), Equus (Asinus) conversidens (Mexican wild ass).

Suggested Age - Late Pleistocene. As the region was covered by ice
during the maximum Wisconsin advance, the fossils are probably of
interstadial or interglacial age.

Remarks - Fossils are from sandy gravel in a terrace about 100 feet
(30.5 m) above the present level of the Red Deer River. Boulders
in the sandy gravel appear to be a lag deposit from a moraine.
The presence of imperial mammoth suggests that the fauna

occupied a relatively warm grassland environment.

References - Churcher 1972; Harington 1971a.

11-19. Medicine Hat area, Alberta (main localities are Surprise, Mitchell and
Island bluffs)

Hi. Fauna i

Mammals - Homo sp. (indirect evidence of man), Antilocapra cf.

amerteana (prongbuck), Bison bison cf. bison (plains bison).
suggested Age.- Postglacial, 5,000 B.P.

Remarks - Fossils are from a sand unit 50 feet (15.2 m) thick at the
top of the section. The presence of bison and prongbuck remains
suggests a prairie grassland like that at present covering the
Medicine Hat region.

57

It should be noted that stratigraphic data presented here have
been drawn from a chart (Stalker and Churcher 1970) showing a
composite portrayal of deposits exposed at 12 bluffs along the
South Saskatchewan River from 7 miles (11.3 km) west to 8 miles
12.9 km) north of Medicine Hat. As no single bluff exhibited a
complete section, the thickest exposure of each unit in the
area was used in the chart. Units whose correct positions in

the composite section were uncertain were generally omitted.

References - See No. 19 Fauna 9.
12. Fauna 2
Mammals - Homo sp. (indirect evidence of man), Canis lupus (wolf),

Mammuthus prtmtgentus (woolly mammoth), Equus (Asinus)
converstdens (Mexican wild ass), ?Camelidae (camel), Bison sp.

(large bison).
Suggested Age - Late Wisconsin, 11,000 B.P.

Remarks - Fossils are from the upper 40 feet (12 m) of a
60-foot-thick (18.3 m) sand and gravel unit that underlies the
uppermost postglacial sand unit. A grassland environment is
indicated by the number of grazers in the fauna. Cool
grassland or tundra-like conditions are suggested by the

woolly-mammoth remains.

References - See No. 19 Fauna 9.
13. Fauna 3
Mammals - Cants lupus (wolf), Mammuthus imperator (imperial mammoth),

Equus (Astnus) conversidens (Mexican wild ass), Camelops sp.

(camel).

Suggested Age - Late Wisconsin. The dating of 15,000 B.P.
estimated by Stalker and Churcher (1970) seems too old or too
recent if the ice-frontal positions near Medicine Hat indicated

by Prest (1969) are correct.

Remarks - Fossils are from near the base of the lower 20 feet (6.1 m)
of a 60-foot-thick (18.3 m) unit of sand and gravel that is
underlain by a yellowish-buff till of Wisconsin age. The fauna
suggests a grassland environment, perhaps warmer than that
indicated by Fauna 2. The imperial mammoth evidently occupied

a warmer environment than the woolly mammoth.

References - See No. 19 Fauna 9.

38

14.

Ss

Fauna 4

Amphibians - Bufo hemtophrys (toad)

Mammals - WNothrothertum ?shastense (Shasta ground sloth), Canis cf.
dirus (dire wolf), Smilodon floridanus (sabretooth cat),
Mammuthus sp. (mammoth), Equus (Astnus) conversidens (Mexican
wild ass), Camelops hesternus (western camel), Odocoileus sp.

(deer), ?Antilocapra cf. amerteana (prongbuck).

Suggested Age - Late mid-Wisconsin.

Remarks - Fossils are from an 80-foot-thick (24.4 m) sand and gravel
unit overlain by yellowish-buff till and underlain by a gravel
bed 15 feet (4.6 m) thick. There is an erosional break between
fossiliferous and till deposits. Most of the mammals, such as
the mammoth, wild ass, camel and possibly the prongbuck,
suggest that the fauna occupied a basically grassland
environment. Probably moist areas and patches of trees and
shrubs were present too, as indicated by the toad and deer

fossils respectively.

References - See No. 19 Fauna 9.

Fauna 5

Mammals - Lepus cf. townsendt (hare), Cynomys cf. ludovictanus
(prairie dog), Spermophilus richardsont (ground squirrel),
Thomomys cf. talpoides (pocket gopher), Mierotus sp. (vole),
Cants cL. Tavrans (coyote), Spilogale ci. putorius (spotted
skunk), Smilodon floridanus (sabretooth cat), Mammuthus sp.
(mammoth), Equus (Astnus) conversidens (Mexican wild ass), Equus
cf. giganteus (large horse), Hemiauchenta ?stevenst (long-
legged llama), Camelops hesternus (western camel), Odocoileus sp.
(deer), ?Antilocapra cf. americana (prongbuck), Bison sp. (large
bison).

Suggested Age - Early mid-Wisconsin. Radiocarbon analyses of wood
approximately 3 to 7 feet (1 to 2 m) above the faunal remains
yielded dates of 37,900 + 1,100 B.P. (GSC-1442) and
38, 700' 1% 100 BaP. (GSC-1447-7).

Remarks - Fossils are from a 105-foot-thick (32 m) unit of silt
containing sand and minor clay, overlain and underlain by gravel.
Most mammal fossils suggest a prairie grassland habitat for this

fauna.

References - See No. 19 Fauna 9.

39

16.

Wr

40

Mammals - Mammuthus primigentus (woolly mammoth), Equus (Asinus)

conversidens (Mexican wild ass), Camelops cf. hesternus

(western camel).

Suggested Age - Early Wisconsin.

Remarks - Fossils are from a 2-foot-thick (0.6 m) gravel unit

overlain by sand and clay and underlain by dark-grey contorted
till. The mammal fossils suggest a cool grassland or tundra-

like environment.

References - See No. 19 Fauna 9.

Birds - ?Buteo sp. (hawk), Canachites sp. (grouse).

Mammals - Megalonyx sp. (ground sloth), Sylvilagus floridanus

(rabbit), Lepus cf. townsendt (hare), Thomomys cf. talpoides
(pocket gopher), Cynomys cf. Ludovicianus (prairie dog),
Spermophilus richardsont (ground squirrel), Microtus sp. (vole),
Ondatra ztbethicus (muskrat), Erethizon dorsatum (porcupine),
Cants lupus (wolf), Vulpes vulpes (red fox), Procyon lotor
(raccoon), Mustela (Putorius) cf. nigripes (large ferret),

Lynx canadensis (lynx), Panthera leo atrox (American lion),
Mammuthus columbt jeffersont (Jefferson's mammoth), Equus
(Asinus) conversidens (Mexican wild ass), Equus secotti (Scott's
horse), Amerhippus sp. (neotropical horse), Hemiauchenia sp.
(long-legged llama), Camelops hesternus (western camel),
Odocotleus sp. (deer), Cervus cf. elaphus (wapiti), Rangifer
tarandus (caribou), Rangifer sp. (small caribou) ?Alces sp.
(moose-like deer), ?4ntilocapra cf. americana (prongbuck),

Ovts canadensis (mountain sheep), Bison cf. lattfrons (giant

bison).

Suggested Age - Sangamon interglacial.

Remarks - Fossils are from a 95-foot-thick (29 m) sand and gravel

unit containing stones from the Canadian Shield near its base.
The unit is overlain by a dark-grey contorted till and

underlain by black till. The environment of deposition was
mainly fluvial. Some conclusions can be reached concerning the
past environment of the vertebrate fauna by considering habitats
commonly occupied by the various species represented. The hawk
suggests woodland or open country, while the grouse probably

indicates the proximity of coniferous or mixed forest. Of the
29 mammal species possibly represented, 12 are commonly found in
open grassland habitats, 5 in parkland, 4 in woodland, 2 in
tundra or coniferous forest, and one commonly in alpine
grassland; another is associated with water; and the remaining

3 are variable in their choice of habitat. Therefore, large
tracts of open grassland with patches of trees and some ponds or
lakes probably were present in this region of southern Alberta
during the Sangamon interglacial. Of the species listed,

approximately one third are extinct.

References - See No. 19 Fauna’ 9:
18. Fauna 8
Mammals - Megalonyx jeffersont (Jefferson's ground sloth), Cynomys

cf. ludovtetanus (prairie dog), Mammuthus columbt (Columbian
mammoth), Equus (Astnus) sp. (wild ass), FE. scotti (Scott's
horse), Camelops sp. (camel), Rangifer sp. (small caribou),

Btson cf. lattfrons (giant bison).
Suggested Age - Yarmouth interglacial.

Remarks - Fossils are from an 80-foot-thick (24.4 m) sand unit
underlying a thin black till containing stones from the
Canadian Shield, and overlying a thin organic layer containing
spruce, poplar and willow wood. The environment of deposition
was fluvial. Mammal remains suggest a predominantly open-
grassland environment, which evidently followed a moister
period when woodlands were more common in the region than they
are now. The elements of this mammal fauna seem to be the same
as that of the Sangamon fauna. The early appearance of bison in
a fauna considered to be of Yarmouth age would seem remarkable
if a probably earlier bison had not been recorded from Alaska
@labile mic

D.M. Hopkins (personal communication, 1976) suggests that this
fauna could be of pre-Sangamon interglacial age and still not be
Yarmouthian. In Alaska, the Kotzebuan and Einahnuhtan
interglacials (which could be a single event) are clearly within
the Brunhes normal polarity interval, and seem to be younger
than lavas dated about 0.3 million years old, but are clearly
pre-Sangamon. Hopkins states that the Yarmouth interglacial of
mid-continental North America, on the other hand, seems to be
near the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary and to be approximately

0.6 to 1.0 million years old. He suspects that this fauna

41

"is younger than the mid-continent Yarmouth, inasmuch as the

fauna seems to be quite modern."

19. Fauna 9

Mammals - ?WNothrotherium sp. (small ground sloth), Mylodontidae
(large ground sloth), Castor cf. canadensis (beaver), Canis cf.
etruscus (Etruscan wolf), Felidae (extinct large cat), Mammuthus
mertdionatis (southern mammoth), Equus ?calobatus (stilt-legged
ass), Equus scotti (Scott's horse), ?Hemiauchenia blancoensis
(Blancan long-legged llama), Camelops minidokae (Irvington camel),

Antilocapridae (prongbuck).

Suggested Age - Kansan. The mammal fauna apparently straddles the
boundary of the Blancan—Irvingtonian land-mammal ages.

Remarks - Except for the beaver specimen, the fossils are from a
unit 25 feet (7.6 m) thick of coarse, heavily oxidized gravels.
This unit, grading upwards into an organic deposit consisting of
blue clay, sand and peat, is underlain by bedrock of Upper
Cretaceous age. The fossiliferous unit was deposited in a
floodplain. Mammal remains suggest a warm grassland environment
with some trees and permanent bodies of water. This appears to
be the first record in North America of the Etruscan wolf,
which characterized the Villafranchian (?pre-Nebraskan) faunas
of Europe. Canis etruseus may be ancestral to the wolf
(C. lupus) (Kurtén 1968).

Analysis of pollen and wood from the organic layer that
intergrades with the upper surface of the Kansan gravels
indicates open grassland on upland areas, with trees and shrubs
along the streams and possibly pine and spruce forests in the
nearby Cypress Hills. Artemisia is represented in quantity in
the best pollen samples. The climate during this phase may
have been slightly cooler and moister than at present. This
organic layer, with its abundance of wood, is the only one near
Medicine Hat from which beaver has been reported.

References - Churcher 1970; Lowden and Blake 1975; Mott and
Stalker 1972; Russell and Churcher 1972; Stalker 1969b, 1971,
1972a, b; Stalker and Churcher 1970, 1972; Szabo, Stalker and
Churcher 1973.

42

Hand Hills, Alberta (near Delia — Hand Hills Conglomerate)

Mammals - Leporidae (hare or rabbit), Cynomys ludovictanus (prairie
dog), Spermophtlus richardsont (ground squirrel), Geomys sp.
(pocket gopher), Microtus cf. pennsylvanieus (meadow vole),
Elephantidae (extinct elephant), Equus (Asinus) cf. conversidens
(Mexican wild ass).

Suggested Age - Middle-to-late Pleistocene. Probably of
Irvingtonian faunal age or later.

Remarks - Fossils are from the Hand Hills Conglomerate, which lies
at the summit of the Hand Hills some 700 feet (213 m) above the
level of the prairie. Russell reported horse (probably Equus)
from this formation in 1958. Storer indicates that two
mammalian faunal elements are present, one of uppermost Miocene
or lowermost Pliocene age and the other of middle-to-late
Pleistocene age. The Hand Hills Conglomerate formed as a
result of deposition by fast-moving streams. The Pleistocene
mammals evidently occupied a plains grassland with well-developed
soil. The climate may have been warmer and drier than now, for
the Hand Hills lie approximately 225 miles (362 km) northwest of
the nearest modern occurrence of the prairie dog (Cynomys

ludovtetanus).

References - Russell 1958; Storer 1972, 1975.

Zi Cochrane, Alberta, (Grittine South Pit. Grittin, North Pit Clarke Pit ——
Bighill Creek Formation)

Mammals - Equus (Asinus) conversidens (Mexican wild ass), Rangifer
tarandus (caribou), Bison bison occidentalis (western bison),

Ovts canadensis (mountain sheep).

Suggested Age - Late Wisconsin. Radiocarbon analyses of Bison bones
yielded dates of 115,000 #160 B.P. ((GSC-989))),, 20,760) = NOOrBEr.
(GSC-612) and 116370 4°170_ BaP. ((GSG-61'5).

Remarks - Fossils are from deposits of sand to coarse gravel on
Terrace 5 of the lower set of terraces on the north bank of the
Bow River. These deposits constitute the Clarke Pit Member of
the Bighill Creek Formation. The bones were deposited in a
floodplain environment. The mammal remains indicate a cool
open grassland. The presence of mountain sheep and caribou in
the fauna may be accounted for by their having moved onto the

western plains toward the end of the Wisconsin glaciation and in

43

postglacial time. On the other hand, the heavy erosion of these
fossils may indicate that they were transported from the eastern
flanks of the Rocky Mountains.

References - Churcher 19084, 1973; Stalker 1968:
British Columbia

Cowan (1941) provided the first valuable review of Quaternary and
postglacial mammals from British Columbia. Ice-age vertebrate fossils in this
mountainous province are rare because of periodic intense glaciation by
Cordilleran ice. Many concentrations of fossils must have been crushed and
ground beneath great masses of ice. Even during interglacial phases, remains
of alpine species undergo particularly heavy erosion in fast-running mountain

streams, and consequently are seldom preserved.

The earliest known mountain-goat record (Oreamnos sp.) is of a partial
skull from Sangamon, or earlier, interglacial deposits near Quesnel Forks
(Harington 1971b). Fossils of mountain sheep are uncommon in Canadian ice-age
deposits. A well-preserved cranium of a bighorn ram (Ovis canadensis) was
recovered from a gravel pit near Finlay Forks (Rutter, Geist and Shackleton
1972). Radiocarbon analysis of bone from the specimen yielded a date of
9,280 + 200 B.P. (GSC-1497). The evidence suggests that bighorn sheep reached
this northerly part of their range near the close of the Wisconsin, and that
they had not come in contact with thinhorn sheep at the time. However, the
presence of relatively large mountain-sheep bones from late-Pleistocene
deposits in the Yukon make this picture more complex.

In addition to the mountain goat from Quesnel Forks, other species have
been reported from gold-bearing gravels of the Cariboo District: ground sloth
(Megalonyx sp.), Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), woolly mammoth
(M. primigenius), wild ass (Equus (Asinus) sp.), mule deer (Odocoileus
hemionus), deer (Odocotleus sp.), moose (Alces sp.), caribou (Rangifer sp.),
and bison (Bison sp.).

Radiocarbon analysis of the molar of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus
primtgentus) from terrace gravels near Taylor yielded a date of 27,400 + 580
B.P. (GSC-2034). This evidence implies that these tundra-adapted mammoths
lived an the Peace: River: region before the! ice;of the Last glaciation covered
the area. They appear to have reoccupied the region after the Wisconsin ice
retreated, if a radiocarbon date of 7,670 + 170 B.P. (1-2244) on tusk from
moraine deposits at Portage Pass is correct.

44

In 1971 the partly articulated skeleton of a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus
cf. columbi) was excavated from silty pond deposits overlain by a thick layer
of glacial till at Babine Lake. Two radiocarbon dates of 42,900 + 1,860 B.P.
(GSC-1657) and 43,800 + 1,830 B.P. (GSC-1687) on wood from the silty
fossiliferous layer and another of 34,000 + 690 B.P. (GSC-1754) on the
mammoth bone suggest that the animal sank in sticky pond deposits and died
there. Palaeobotanical evidence indicates that during this part of the
Olympia Interglaciation, the vegetation near Babine Lake was similar to
present shrub tundra just beyond the treeline in northern Canada (Harington,
Tipper and Mote 1974)" (Freure 11)"

Only traces have been found of the vertebrate faunas that occupied the
southern interior of British Columbia during nonglacial phases of the ice age.
None of the species identified would be out of place in a late-Pleistocene
(i.e. Illinoian to Wisconsin) fauna. Remains of unidentified fish, rodents,
wild asses (Equus (Astnus) sp.) and bison (Bison sp.) from deposits covered
by two tills near Westwold indicate that those vertebrates, at least, occupied

the region during Sangamon, or earlier, interglacial time.

Fossils of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus sp.) are known from ?late
Wisconsin deposits on the Thompson River (Miller 1965). Oncorhynchus remains
have also been identified from calcareous nodules near Kamloops, but they are
probably of Tertiary rather than Quaternary age.

Remains of Pleistocene mammals have been reported from Vancouver Island
and vicinity since 1895. At least 18 specimens of large land mammals are
known from Vancouver Island, and over 14 have been collected from islands
between the mainland and Vancouver Island. The fact that the extinct muskox
(Symbos cavifrons), American mastodon (Mammut americanum), imperial mammoth
(Mammuthus imperator), and possibly the Columbian mammoth (M. columbt), horse
(Equus sp.) and bison (Bison sp.) once lived on what is now Vancouver Island
suggests that land connections with the mainland could have existed during
glacial maxima of the late Pleistocene. This is substantiated by what is
known about Pleistocene worldwide sea-level depression and the present
bathymetry of the waters between the mainland and southeastern Vancouver
Island (Harington 1975a). Also, some of the "warmer-adapted" species, such as
the imperial mammoth and American mastodon, could have crossed large
floodplains that filled the Strait of Georgia during the Olympia
Interglaciation. The most northerly ice-age land-mammal records for
Vancouver Island concern molar teeth of the American mastodon and the
imperial mammoth (Mammuthus cf. tmperator) from near Courtenay. Stratigraphic
evidence suggests that the fossils, most of them from the gravel pits on the

Saanich Peninsula, are more than 20,000 years old.

45

k
i, =

Lai) eS
Vp es ae

ERGURE WT.

46

mere NS
WE De
A

i 0
D'or /

a et fos 2 \
AC A s PAP.

- —<—
>
4 - ee

A restoration of the Babine Lake Mammoth (Mammuthus cf.
columbi) as tt may have appeared in its natural
shrub-tundra envtronment in central British Columbta
about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. Ink sketch by

Charles Douglas.

A few vertebrates have been collected from Pleistocene and postglacial
marine or coastal deposits at Vancouver or on southern Vancouver Island. They
include the northern sea lion (Eumetopias cf. jubata), baleen whale
(Mysticeti), and killer whale (Orceinus sp.) (Cowan 1941). An operculum of the
Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) was recovered from a marine bottom core
taken at Saanich Inlet, Vancouver Island (Casteel 1975). Radiocarbon dates
from above and below the specimen are 9,850 + 100 B.P. (UW-678) and
10,890 + 95 B.P. (UW-688).

Palaeo-Indians, presumably adapted to life along rivers, particularly to
salmon fishing, occupied a site near Yale on the Fraser River in early
postglacial time (Borden 1960). At the nearby Milliken Site, the earliest
level was radiocarbon dated at 9,000 + 150 B.P. (S-113) (Borden 1965).

Northwest Territories

An early postglacial fauna from Acasta Lake is the only one recognized
from this vast area. The remaining specimens are mostly isolated finds
seldom found in stratigraphic context. Repeated heavy glaciation, the
preponderance of barren Precambrian rock on the mainland, the rather
formidable climate, and a consequently impoverished flora and fauna have
militated against occupation of the region by a large variety of vertebrates
and the preservation of Pleistocene vertebrate faunas.

Remains of large ice-age land mammals, such as mammoth and bison, are
occasionally found in the Mackenzie Delta region (Mackay 1958, 1963), but are
nearly absent in the more heavily glaciated areas of the Canadian Shield. In
the early 1970s, fossils of the Yukon wild ass (Equus (Astnus) lambet) were
identified from Pleistocene deposits near Tununuk on the Mackenzie River in
association with bones of the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus cf. primigentus)
which yielded a radiocarbon date of 19,440 + 290 B.P. (1-8578); on Richard's
Island; and on the sea floor near a man-made island called Immerk. The latter
find deserves further comment. In 1973, a perfect deeply stained humerus of
the Yukon wild ass was excavated from beneath 11 feet (3.4 m) of water and
42 feet (12.8 m) of sea-bottom sediment in the course of dredging for the

construction of an oil-drilling platform in Mackenzie Bay.

Vertebrate specimens from beaches on the Baillie Islands just east of the
Mackenzie Delta suggest two successive types of environment (Harington 1971c):
a cool loess-steppe environment as indicated by remains of woolly mammoth
(Mammuthus primtgentus), horse (Equus sp.), caribou (Rangifer tarandus),
bison (Bison sp.), saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica), and muskox (0vtbos

moschatus); and a marine coastal environment as indicated by remains of

47

bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), ringed seal (Phoca (Pusa) hispida) and
polar bear (Ursus maritimus). The latter group of specimens could range in

age from Quaternary to Recent.

The saiga fossil from Baillie Islands is the first recorded for Canada
(Figure 12). Other specimens have been collected near Fairbanks and near the
north coast of Alaska. Because saiga antelopes are particularly adapted to
dry steppe-grasslands, they probably crossed the wide steppe-like plains of
the northern Bering Isthmus and spread along the broadened Arctic Coastal
Plain of North America as far east as the Baillie Islands during Illinoian
and Wisconsin glacial phases. The species became extinct in North America
toward the close of the Wisconsin glacial, but survives in central Eurasia.

An interesting exception to the rule that ice-age vertebrate remains are
generally absent in the heavily glaciated areas of the Canadian Shield was
the discovery of the cheek tooth of a ground sloth (Megalonyx cf. jeffersont)
and fragments of the tooth of a mastodon (Mammut americanum) at Lower Carp
Lake north of Yellowknife (Stock and Richards 1949). The occurrence of the
former specimen, when considered with a Megalonyx toe-bone from near
Fairbanks, Alaska (Stock 1942), and more than a dozen Megalonyx specimens
from the Old Crow Basin, Yukon Territory, suggests that these large ground
sloths occupied a fairly broad east-west range in northwestern North America

during a warmer phase of the late Quaternary (Harington 1970b).

During the Wisconsin glaciation, muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) and caribou
(Rangtfer tarandus) may have survived in a Banks Island refugium. This is
suggested, but not proved, by a radiocarbon date of more than 34,000 B.P.
(S-288) on a muskox bone from the Bernard River (Maher 1968); a radiocarbon
date of 10,660 + 170 B.P. (GSC-240) on plant debris enclosing a muskox
pelvic fragment from a locality north of Masik River; and a fragment of
caribou mandible of possibly late-Quaternary age from sands containing plant

remains on the south side of Masik River.

Sticks gnawed by beavers have been collected from Tertiary and Quaternary
deposits in many localities throughout the Northwest Territories. L.V. Hills
(personal communication, 1973) has collected them from well-preserved organic
beds of late-Miocene or Pliocene age near Ballast Brook on northwestern Banks
Island. At that time, environmental conditions on northern Banks Island
resembled those in the southern part of Ontario's boreal forest today.
Beaver-cut sticks, probably of similar age, have also been found in organic
sediments on west-central Ellesmere Island, for example Strathcona Fiord
(J.G. Fyles, personal communication, 1971). They have been reported from
Quaternary interglacial deposits on Rat River and at Worth Point on Banks

48

FIGURE 12.

Fragment of the left side of a satga-antelope

(Saiga tatarica) erantum with horncore, from Quaternary

depostts on Batllie Islands, Northwest Territories.

49

Island. At Rat River a beaver-gnawed stick from the base of a 40-foot

(12.2 m) layer of organic silt overlying an older till yielded a radiocarbon
date of more than 38,600 B.P. (GSC-120). At Worth Point, beaver-gnawed wood
was collected from uncompressed peat that yielded a radiocarbon date of

>49 000" B. PE (GSC-367) (Prest 1970). Beaver-cut sticks from organic
sediments near Arctic Red River were radiocarbon dated at 9,500 + 90 B.P.
(GSC-1814). These reports indicate the great latitudinal fluctuations in the
range of beavers and their moist woodland habitat since the late Tertiary,
and provide some evidence of the cooling climate throughout this period.
Thus, beavers are known to have reached their most northerly limit of
approximately 79°N in the late Tertiary, retreated to about 73°N by Sangamon
interglacial time, and reoccupied habitat 2° south of their present
interglacial limit of 69°N by the close of the Wisconsin glaciation.

In addition to those from the Baillie Islands, mammoth remains have been
collected from two islands in the Northwest Territories. Members of
Stefansson's Canadian Arctic Expedition (1913-18) collected most of the tusk
of an elephant (Proboscidea cf. Mammuthus), yielding a radiocarbon date of
21,900 + 320 B.P. (GSC-1760), from a site near Cape James Ross on Melville
Island (Kindle 1924; Blake 1974). This is the most northerly record’ of a
mammoth in North America. It is difficult to explain the presence of
mammoths in this part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands during the peak of the
Wisconsin glaciation. Perhaps the tusk was rafted along by glacial or sea
ice. A heavily worn molar of a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbt) was
collected from the rocky surface of Long Island in southeastern Hudson Bay in
1878 (Bell 1898). Presumably Columbian mammoths occupied grasslands in that
region during an earlier interglacial. Sternberg's report (1963) of a
mammoth tusk from Pond Inlet on northern Baffin Island must be regarded as
doubtful.

A radiocarbon date of 7,320 + 120 B.P. (1I-7796) on walrus bone from
raised beach deposits near the Goodsir River on central Bathurst Island
shows that walruses were able to occupy this part of the Queen Elizabeth
Islands about 2,000 years after the last ice sheet had vanished from the
region. Large whales, probably bowheads (Balaena mysticetus), entered the
area about the same time according to a date of 7,830 + 140 B.P. (GSC-1193) on
whale bone from a raised beach near Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island
(Harington 1975b). Evidently bowhead whales were widespread along the
southern and eastern coasts of the Canadian Arctic Islands 8,000 to 9,000 years
ago, as indicated by radiocarbon dates on bone from raised beaches at the
mouth of the Cunningham River on Somerset Island (8,990 + 140 B.P. [GSC-266]),
and at Truelove Inlet on Devon Island (8,270 + 150 B.P. [GSC-991]).

50

Fielden (Fielden and De Rance 1878) collected collared lemming
(Dicrostonyx torquatus), ringed seal (Phoca (Pusa) htspida), caribou
(Rangifer tarandus), and muskox (Ovibos moschatus) specimens from raised
beach deposits near Alert on northern Ellesmere Island. Presumably they are
of postglacial age. It is difficult to say whether these mammals spread to
this area from the adjacent Pearyland refugium or arrived by a longer route
from the Banks Island refugium. Where muskoxen and caribou are concerned,
fossil evidence tends to support the latter alternative (Harington 1970a).

Remains of fishes, provisionally identified as cod (Gadidae) and blenny
(Stichaeidae) by D.E. McAllister (personal communication, 1975), have been
collected from calcareous clay nodules of possible postglacial age from the

western margin of Pelly Bay.

Records of early human occupation of the Northwest Territories are sketchy,
but interesting. The earliest known sites indicate a dispersal of Plano
hunters northward into the Barrenlands as the Keewatin ice retreated.

Possibly they were able to subsist by shifting from hunting bison in the south
to hunting barren-ground caribou (Rangtfer tarandus groenlandicus) in the
north (Gordon 1975). Projectile points about 7,000 years old are known from
Acasta Lake (Noble 1971), and Agate Basin points have been collected in
quantity near Grant Lake (Gordon 1975).

Fauna
22. Acasta Lake, Northwest Territories (65°24'N, 115°31'W)

Fishes = Species not determined.

Birds - Probably Aquila chrysaëtos (Golden Eagle) or Haltaeetus
leucocephalus (Bald Eagle).

Mammals - Homo sp. (indirect evidence of man from artifacts and
hearths), Lepus sp. (hare), Castor canadensis (beaver),

Ursus americanus (black bear), Rangifer tarandus (caribou).

Suggested Age - Postglacial, 7,000 B.P. Charcoal from the site
has yielded radiocarbon dates of 4,900 + 150 B.C. (GaK-3277) and
550/20) ce SO0NB Ce. (1-395 7).

Remarks - Fossils are from sand below 4 inches (10.2 cm) of leaf
mold on the eastern end of an esker. Fish, beaver and
black-bear remains suggest the presence of forest with streams
or lakes during the early postglacial. Caribou fossils may
indicate that the tundra—boreal forest margin was nearby.

Evidently Plano people periodically hunted caribou in the area.

51

References - Forbis 1961; Noble 1971.
Yukon Territory

During the ice age, much of Alaska and the Yukon were unglaciated, and
were occupied by a homogeneous, relatively rich vertebrate fauna. Unglaciated
areas, such as this part of the Beringian refugium, often provide more
productive fossil vertebrate localities than do regions that have undergone
many glaciations, such as most of the rest of Canada. However, stratigraphic
differentiation of glacial and nonglacial deposits is more difficult in an
unglaciated region because the till layers that mark the limits of the
different glacial phases are absent.

Robert Campbell of the Hudson's Bay Company was the first European to
comment on Quaternary vertebrate fossils from the Yukon Territory. Between
1840 and 1852 he saw bones of extinct bison and mammoth on the Pelly River
near the Dawson area and forwarded a mammoth tibia to the British Museum.
The first recorded ice-age mammal remains from the Old Crow area were
collected on the Porcupine River prior to 1873 by the Anglican missionary
the Reverend Robert McDonald. A concerted effort to study the abundant and
interesting ice-age vertebrate fossils of the Yukon region began in 1966,
when long-term projects near Dawson and the Old Crow Basin were initiated by
the National Museums of Canada (Harington 1970b). Besides these important
areas, Sixtymile River and Herschel Island are yielding increasing numbers
of specimens. As a result of this work, sixty-four species of Pleistocene
mammals alone have been described from unglaciated parts of the northern
Yukon (Harington 1976 MS).

Most Pleistocene vertebrate remains in the Dawson area come from near the
base of frozen ‘'muck'' deposits and the surface of underlying gold-bearing
gravels, which are usually exposed during placer-mining operations. The
fossils are mainly of Wisconsin age, and have a rather fresh appearance
because of their preservation in frozen ground. Shreds of dessicated flesh
have been found on mammoth and extinct-horse remains enclosed in permafrost
at Sixtymile River. A well-preserved cranium, with articulating mandible, of
an American lion (Panthera leo atrox) was obtained from frozen silts on
Hunker Creek (Figure 13). At Dawson and Old Crow, the commonest remains
collected are horse, mammoth, and bison, suggesting the presence of extensive
grasslands in the unglaciated Yukon during the late Quaternary, thus
corroborating Guthrie's observations (1968a) on Alaskan Pleistocene mammals.

Late Pleistocene mammalian faunas from the two areas differ in that the

remains of beaver, giant beaver (Figure 14) and muskrat are common in the

52

Tin

FIGURE 13. Right side of the skull of an Amertecan lion

(Panthera leo atrox) from late-Wisconsin depostts

near Hunker Creek, Dawson area, Yukon Territory.

53

FIGURE 14.

54

Lateral view of the right mandible of a giant beaver
(Castoroides ohioensis) from Porcupine River near Old
Crow, Yukon Territory. Note the long, characteristically
ribbed cutting-tooth. These large rodents reached
Lengths of 8 feet (2.4 m) and may have wetghed over

400 pounds (180 kg).

Old Crow area, but extremely rare at Dawson (only one specimen of Castor is
known from Quartz Creek). On the other hand, mountain-sheep remains (Ovis cf.
dallzi) are fairly common in the Dawson deposits, but so far have not been
recognized from Old Crow sediments. Pending further evidence, it can be
inferred that the Dawson area had more of an alpine-grassland environment
during the mid-Wisconsin than did the Old Crow Basin, which apparently
consisted of extensive grassy uplands with spruce woodland, lakes, ponds

and sluggish streams in lower areas (McAllister and Harington 1969; Crossman
and Harington 1970).

In the Old Crow Basin, most ice-age vertebrate remains are derived from
oxidized sands and sandy gravels underlain by grey lacustrine clay that shows
signs of periglacial influence of possibly Illinoian age. Therefore, most of
the vertebrate fossils appear to be of late-Pleistocene age (Sangamon to
Wisconsin). A large, deep glacial lake that occupied much of the basin
during the Wisconsin glaciation evidently drained about 11,000 years ago.

As the winding Old Crow River cut down through the basin deposits in
postglacial time, many fossil sites were exposed. They range in age from the
close of the Wisconsin (Locality 11(1)), through mid-Wisconsin (for example,
many bones from Locality 14N) to Sangamon age (Locality 44). Some specimens
appear to represent elements of an Illinoian or pre-Illinoian fauna.

In 1967, a layer of late-Wisconsin sediments containing abundant freshly
preserved skeletal remains of the large-horned bison (Bison crassicornts) was
discovered at Locality 11(1) well above the level of the Old Crow River.
Radiocarbon analyses of bison bone from the site have yielded dates of
LI OV0 = LO Bees 7 7/o5) and L22460.2 220 Bebe @-S5574) = Av homicorestrom
a Bison crasstcornts cranium, located near the surface of the first gravel
bar downstream from Locality 11(1) and presumably washed down from that site
during the’ spring flood, gave" a radiocarbon date of 12275 2° 280) Babe W@l-7 7/04).
This concentration of bone may have resulted from a herd of bison breaking
through lake ice and dying, their bones eventually being transported a short
distance down slope to the present locality. Lack of signs of butchering on
the bones and an absence of artifacts indicate that Locality 11(1) is not a

site where bison were killed by people.

Although most vertebrate fossils from the Old Crow Basin seem to be of
Sangamon interglacial age or later, specimens of steppe mammoth (Mammuthus cf.
armentacus), large horse (Equus cf. E. (Plestppus) verae), giant moose
(Alees lattfrons), Soergel's muskox (Soergelta cf. elisabethae), and
Staudinger's muskox (Praeovibos priseus) suggest the presence of a middle-
Pleistocene fauna. Unfortunately, none of the specimens has been found in its

initial state of deposition. These faunal elements show greatest affinity to

55

the Olyor fauna described from the Kolyma Lowland of eastern Siberia
(Appendix, see Fauna 4), and probably occupied a steppe-tundra environment.
All of the species mentioned, or their close counterparts, are represented

in the Olyor fauna, which Sher (197la) considers to be of Mindel (= ?Kansan)
age. These or similar species are also represented in early middle-
Pleistocene faunas from Norwich, England (Cromer series (McWilliams 1967)),
Süssenborn and Mosbach in the German Democratic Republic, and Tiraspol in the
southern area of the European part of the U.S.S.R. (Vangengeim and Sher 1970;
Kahlke 1973). Steppe mammoths (Mammuthus armentacus — see Maglio 1973) are
common and widespread in Eurasian middle-Pleistocene deposits. The large
horse Equus (Plestppus) verae was originally described from early middle-
Pleistocene beds in the Kolyma Lowland of Siberia. It, or a closely related
form, is known from the Old Crow Basin, but has not yet been recognized
elsewhere in North America. Alces latifrons evidently had a Holarctic
distribution from England to North America. A radiocarbon date of

33,800 + 2,000 B.P. (1-4225) on an antler beam of a giant moose from the

Old Crow Basin suggests that it survived until mid-Wisconsin time in North
America. It has been described from the Fairbanks area of Alaska under the
name Cervalces alaskensis (Frick 1937). Soergelia, once called a steppe-goat
but which appears to be a primitive muskox, had an early middle-Pleistocene
distribution extending from Germany to Texas, where it has been recorded from
Kansan deposits and described under the name Preptoceras mayfteldi (Troxell
1915). Soergelia has not yet been reported from Alaska, although

undoubtedly it lived there. Praeovibhos is known from England, Germany,
Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon. Péwé (1975a, b) considers that Praeovtbos
specimens from the Fairbanks area of Alaska are probably Illinoian in age.
Unlike Soergeltia, and probably Alces latifrons, it did not penetrate

southern North America.

Remains attributed to early Pleistocene mammals such as the southern
mammoth (Mammuthus meridionalis), the giant pika (Ochotona cf. whartoni) and
the plains shrew (?Plantsorex cf. dixonensis) have also been collected from
sediments in the Old Crow Basin (Harington 1976 MS).

A few miles downstream from Old Crow on the Porcupine River (Locality 100),
a lens of beaver-cut sticks about 24 feet (7.3 m) long and 2 feet (0.6 m)
thick was found. It appeared to be part of an ancient beaver dam, compressed
by the weight of 175 feet (53.3 m) of overlying sediments. The beaver-cut
sticks are considered to be of Yarmouth interglacial age or older. Large
spruce cones as well as tree trunks up to 2 feet (0.6 m) in diameter project
from this basal layer of compact oxidized sand (Harington 1971c). Fish scales
excavated at this locality from a well-defined shell horizon approximately

40 feet. (2.2 m) from the surface indicate that Arctic grayling

56

(Thymallus aretteus) occupied-a large, cool, shallow lake that existed there
some 32,000 years ago. Teeth of the brown lemming (Lemmus sibiricus) from
the same horizon suggest that this species occupied wet meadow habitat near
the margins of the lake (McAllister and Harington 1969).

An interesting find from Miller Creek in the Sixtymile area consisted of
Arctic lupine seeds probably more than 10,000 years old, which were found in
collared-lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus) burrows deeply buried in
perennially frozen sallt. Ther seeds had evidently been part of a food store
of the lemmings. Seven of the two dozen seeds collected germinated, and one
blossomed in a greenhouse at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa
(Porsild, Harington and Mulligan 1967; Black 1967).

Remains of the following vertebrates, evidently eroded from ice-age
deposits, have been collected from Herschel Island: dog (Canis familtarts),
mammoth (Mammuthus sp.), Yukon wild ass (Equus (Asinus) lambet), large-horned
bison (Bison cf. erasstcornis), extinct muskox (?Bodthertum sp.), and tundra
muskox (Ovibos moschatus). Of these specimens, the dog mandible with teeth
is perhaps the most interesting, because it could indicate the presence of
early man along the Arctic coast of themYukon in late-Pleastocenes times nt
was collected with mammoth ivory from the southwesternmost spit of the island.
I suspect that it is of Pleistocene age, because both ramus and teeth are
deeply stained, and the worn surfaces of the teeth are black as are similar

specimens of Pleistocene age from the Old Crow Basin.

Pleistocene vertebrates are rarely found in their original state of
deposition in the Yukon Territory. The Whitestone mammoth is a notable
exception. In 1967, much of the articulated skeleton of a woolly mammoth
(Mammuthus primigentus), including a complete skull, was excavated on the
Whitestone River. Bone from this specimen was radiocarbon dated at
50), 500% 22 2, 0004 Bx Pe ale S570).

No fish fossils have been found, and only one bird specimen is known from
late-Pleistocene deposits in the Dawson area. It consists of a coracoid
fragment of a hawk (Buteo sp.), probably the Red-tailed Hawk (B. jamatcensis)
or the Rough-legged Hawk (B. lagopus) (H. Savage, personal communication, 1974),

from muck deposits on Dominion Creek.

Fish and bird specimens are not uncommon in the Old Crow Basin deposits.
Many good fossils of pike (Esox Lucius) have been identified. Among the birds
recorded are: ducks, geese, loons, grebes, gulls, shore birds, grouse or

ptarmigan, and birds of prey (G.R. Fitzgerald, personal communication, 1976).

Di

Only indirect evidence of early man is available in the Yukon Territory.
In 1966, a fleshing tool made from a caribou tibia was found at Locality 14N
on the Old Crow River. A radiocarbon analysis of bone apatite from this
artifact yielded a date of 27,000 *3°0°? B.P. (GX-1640), while similar
analyses of mammoth long-bone fragments flaked by man from this site gave
dates! of 25,750 ea B.P: (GX-1568) and 29,100 Seo BLP. (GX-1567)%
Evidence suggests that these artifacts had been worked when the bone was
fresh. Collagen from unworked mammoth and bison bones from Locality 14N
gavetdates oof -22,600° 4.60008. P. «(1=3575) "and 33; S00) 2-25 000) B2Pe" (i -4227)
respectively. Since that time, approximately 100 artifacts have been
identified from more than 30 fossil localities in the Old Crow Basin, and
perhaps more than 100 bones have been broken by man (as indicated by spiral
fractures; further research is needed to establish whether spiral fractures
can also be caused by processes in nature) (Irving and Harington 1973;
Harington, Bonnichsen and Morlan 1975; Morlan and Bonnichsen 1975). Among
the more’ interesting of these specimens are the front part of a horse
mandible bearing several polished facets and the lower part of a caribou
antler with four well-defined facets on its base. The antler may have been
used as a pestle. Various chert and obsidian artifacts of uncertain age,
including four bifaces, have been found in sedimentary deposits of the Old
Crow Basin (Harington 1975c; Irving and Cinq-Mars 1974).

In 1973 a punch made from part of a caribou antler-beam was collected
with ice-age mammal remains on Hunker Creek near Dawson. Radiocarbon
analysis of another caribou antler from the same site as the punch yielded
a date of 23,900 4 470 B.P. (T=8580). This is the first evidence suggesting
the presence of early man in this higher region of the Yukon near the margin

of the Wisconsin ice (Harington 1975d).

The oldest radiocarbon-dated evidence for man's presence in the
southwestern Yukon consists of the remains of a bison hunter's camp at the
Canyon Site on the Aishihik River. There, Plano-like bifaces were
associated with fragments of bison (Bison sp.) around a buried hearth.
Charcoal from the hearth has yielded a radiocarbon date of 7,195 + 100 B.P.
(SI-1117) (Workman 1974).

Faunas

23. Gold Run Creek, Yukon Territory (Dawson area — 63°43.5'N, 138°41'W)

Mammals - Cants lupus (wolf), Arcetodus simus yukonensis (Yukon short-
faced bear), Taxtdea taxus (badger), Panthera leo atrox

(American lion), Mammut americanum (American mastodon),

58

Mammuthus primigentitus (woolly mammoth), Equus (Asinus) lambet
(Yukon wild ass), Equus (Asinus) cf. kiang (Kiang-like wild ass),
Alces alces (moose), Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Bison
alaskensts (Alaskan bison), B. crassicornis (large-horned bison),

?Boôthertum sp. (extinct muskox).

Suggested Age - Probably late Wisconsin. Bison crassicornis
(Frontispiece: Figure 1) and mammoth bone have yielded
radiocarbon dates of 22,200 + 1,400 B.P. (21-3570) and
52555004) 1750) Bees (l-4226) respective Ver walackensvenls
evidently older than the remainder of the fauna, for bone from a
specimen gave a date of >3595900 BoP. (15405);

Remarks - Fossils are from muck (frozen silt, generally consisting
of loess or reworked loess with some organic matter) near the
surface of underlying gold-bearing gravel, which may be of
interglacial age. The mammals represented suggest that
extensive tracts of cool steppe-like grassland covered upland
areas in the region during the late Wisconsin. Patches of
forest may have been located in valleys. Because of the
relatively high density of the bones, it would appear that many
of the vertebrates were transported down-slope from the former
grassland toward the end of the Wisconsin glaciation and
became concentrated near the surface of local creek-gravels.
Perhaps 8 of the 13 species represented are extinct, and 2 are
no longer living an the Yukon Territory.

Reference - Harington and Clulow 1973.

24. Upper Hunker Creek, Yukon Territory (Dawson area — 63°55'N, 138°52'W)

Mammals - Homo sp. (indirect evidence of man from an artifact),
Spermophilus parryt (arctic ground squirrel), Cants lupus
(wolf), Panthera leo atrox (American lion), Mammuthus
primigentus (woolly mammoth), Equus (Asinus) lambet (Yukon wild
ass), Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Bison crassicornis (large-
horned bison), Symbos cavifrons (extinct muskox), Ovis cf. dalli

(large mountain sheep).

Suggested Age - Probably late Wisconsin. Radiocarbon analysis of a
caribou antler from the site yielded a date of 23,900 + 470 B.P.
(21-8530):

Remarks - The stratigraphic sequence is like that at Gold Run Creek.
Fossils are mainly from muck near the surface of the underlying

gold-bearing gravel. The muck layer reaches a thickness of

59

about 30 feet (9.1 m) at this locality. Paleoenvironment is
similar to that postulated for the Gold Run Creek fauna. A
bullet-shaped artifact made from caribou antler was found with
remains of other Pleistocene mammals from the locality. It
suggests that people occupied this region during the late
Wisconsin. On the basis of this evidence, I speculate that they
had means of making bone tools, and were able to produce stone

tools using the indirect percussion technique.

Reference - Harington 1975d.

25. Sixtymile River, YukonsTerritory:=(6400'N;-140°47"NW)

Mammals - Panthera leo atrox (American lion), Mammuthus primigentius
(woolly mammoth), Equus (Astnus) Lambei (Yukon wild ass),
Equus cf. seotti (Scott's horse), Camelops hesternus (western
camel), Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Cervidae (caribou-like
cervid), Bison crassicornts (large-horned bison), Ovibos
moschatus (tundra muskox), Ovis cf. dalli (large mountain sheep).

Suggested Age - Probably late Wisconsin, according to affinities
with faunas considered to be of this age from Upper Hunker
Creek, Yukon Territory (Fauna 24) and Lost Chicken Creek,
Alaska (Fauna 28).

Remarks - Fossils lay between 2 and 10 feet (0.6 to 3.1 m) from the
bottom of a layer of muck 10 to 20 feet (3.1 to 6.1 m) thick
that overlies 6 feet (1.8 m) of gold-bearing gravel, which, in
turn, rests on bedrock. A well-preserved Bison crasstcornis
skull was collected in place in muck 2.5 feet (0.8 m) above the
gravel surface. The mammals suggest a cool steppe-like
grassland. Collared lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus), woolly
mammoth (Mammuthus cf. primigentus), Yukon wild ass (Equus
(Astnus) cf. Lambet) and caribou (Rangifer tarandus) have
previously been identified from muck deposits near the mouth of
Sixtymile River (Porsild, Harington and Mulligan 1967). Earlier
still, L.M. Lambe identified remains of mammoth, bison, and a
horse smaller in size than Equus scotti (probably the Yukon wild
ass) in the lower part of the muck overlying thick bench gravels
of Claims 11 to 19 on the left limit of Sixtymile River
(Cockfield 1921).

References - Cockfield 1921; Harington, 1975 field notes; Porsild,
Harington and Mulligan 1967.

60

26. Old Crow River, Yukon Territory (Locality 14N — 67°51'N, 139°46'W)

Fishes - Species not determined.

Birds - Tetraonidae (ptarmigan or grouse) and other undetermined
species.

Mammals - Homo sp. (indirect evidence of man from artifacts),

Ochotona cf. whartont (giant pika), Lepus areticus (arctic hare),
Lepus amertcanus (snowshoe hare), Castor canadensis (beaver),
Castorotdes ohtoenstis (giant beaver), Ondatra ztbethicus
(muskrat), Microtus (Stenocranius) miurus (singing vole),

Cuon sp. (dhole), Alopex lagopus (arctic fox), Gulo gulo
(wolverine), Panthera leo atrox (American lion), Felidae
(?scimitar or sabretooth cat), Mammut amertcanum (American
mastodon), Mammuthus primtgentus (woolly mammoth), Zquus cf.
(Plestppus) verae (large horse), Camelops hesternus (western
camel), Alces alees (moose), Rangtfer tarandus (caribou),

Bison crassteornts (large-horned bison).

Suggested Age - Evidently most of the specimens are of mid-to-late
Wisconsin, but the giant pika fossil may be of early
Pleistocene age. Five radiocarbon dates on mammal bone fall
between 22,000 and 36,000 B.P. (see section on early man,
py 58, Som details o£ these radiocarbon dates).

Radiocarbon dates on the wood and the mollusc shells associated
with the vertebrate remains show that organic material of mixed
ages has been deposited at the site. A careful stratigraphic
study of Locality 14N indicates that the fossil-bearing
sediments are point-bar deposits formed within the last few

thousand years.

Remarks - Fossils are from an oxidized unit of grey sandy gravel
averaging about 1.5 feet (0.5 m) thick, overlain by
approximately 13 feet (4.0 m) of brown sandy clay, and underlain
by more than 2 feet (0.6 m) of jointed, oxidized clay evidently
corresponding to the basal clay unit at Locality 44. The
fossil-bearing unit and the overlying sandy clay unit were
probably laid down in postglacial time. Vertebrate faunal
evidence suggests that the species represented lived in a
parkland type of environment during a period of transition to a
cool climate (Wisconsin) from a warmer one (?Sangamon
interglacial). This site provided the first evidence that man
occupied eastern Beringia before the peak of the Wisconsin
glaciation.

61

PTE

62

References - Harington 1970b, 1975c; Irving and Harington 1973.

Old Crow River, Yukon Territor Locality. 44°. Unit 2, ——

Fishes -

Birds -

68°12.6'N, 140°00'W)

Species not determined.

Anatinae or Aythyinae (surface feeding or diving ducks),

Anserinae (geese), Tetraonidae (ptarmigan or grouse).

Mammals

Ochotona princeps (pika), Lepus areticus (arctic hare),

Spermophilus parryt (arctic ground squirrel), Castor canadensis

(beaver), Castoroides ohioensis (giant beaver), Dicrostonyzx

torquatus (collared lemming), Lemmus stbiricus (brown lemming),

Clethrionomys cf. rutilus (red-backed vole), Ondatra zibethicus

(muskrat), Microtus xanthognathus (chestnut-cheeked vole),

?Cants sp. (canid), Alopex lagopus (fox), Mustela sp. (weasel),

Gulo gulo (wolverine), Spilogale sp. (spotted skunk),

Mammuthus sp. (mammoth), Equus cf. (Plesippus) verae (large

horse), Camelini (large camel), Rangifer tarandus (caribou).

Suggested Age - Possibly of Sangamon interglacial age (more than

54,000 years old). Five radiocarbon dates on specimens from

Unit 2 are infinite: bone from Equus sp. and Mammuthus sp.
both yielded dates of >39,900 B.P. (I-4223, 1-4228); a sample
of unidentified wood gave the same age (1-3572); spruce
(Picea sp.) wood yielded dates of >44,000 B.P. (GSC-1593) and
>54,000 B.P. (GSC-2066).

In addition to the radiocarbon dates provided, the following

evidence suggests that the fossil-bearing unit is of Sangamon

age:

(a) analysis of plant macrofossils and invertebrates indicates
that the climate was probably as warm as at present;

(b) a significant change in climate from cold (dwarf birch) to
warmer (spruce-birch) is reflected in pollen assemblage
changes from the basal clay unit to the fossil-bearing unit;

(c) the presence of the spotted skunk over 1,000 miles (1,600 km)

north of its modern range possibly indicates a phase of
warmer climate;

(d) large conifer logs with roots in the fossil-bearing unit
indicate a relatively warm climate;

(e) radiocarbon dates on wood (Picea or Larix, and Salix) of
>42,000 B.P. (GSC-1589, GSC-1297) from positions about 25 to
70 feet (7.6 to 21.3 m) above the contact of the fossil-

bearing unit and basal-clay unit at nearby sites imply a

long time-lapse between these points in the sedimentary
sequence;

(£) an important erosional surface appears to exist between the
basal-clay and fossil-bearing units;

(g) the great depth of burial of the fossil-bearing unit and the
fact that it lies between two geographically widespread,
thick lacustrine units (the upper being of late Wisconsin
age) that apparently mark peaks of successive glaciations.

Remarks - Vertebrate fossils are from the base of Unit 2, which
consists of 1.5 feet (0.5 m) of fine grey gravel with unreworked
shells and grades upwards through rooted logs and layers of
stiveks to brownish ‘clay salt. “The top of this unit appears “to
be best defined by a change in pollen assemblages that occurs
approximately 50) feet "(951 m) "above ats base. This ung’ is
underlain by oxidized clay, occasionally containing organic
detritus, which is more than 11 feet (3.4 m) thick. Overlying
Unit are approximarely S00 meet mn) of butt (salle and clay.
about 7 Leet (25) m)) of varved glaciolacustrine (clay of Tate-
Wisconsin age, and approximately 20 feet (6.1 m) of silty
postglacial deposits. Many species represented by plant and
invertebrate macrofossils and vertebrate remains have aquatic
affinities, and suggest the former presence of ephemeral shallow
ponds and lakes in a river floodplain with sandy margins in
places, and with forest areas or open forest nearby. Forest—
tundra may best describe the vegetation that existed when Unit 2
was deposited, but probably more grasses were present than in
the contemporary forest-tundra of the region.

References - Harington 1971c, 1974; Lichti-Federovich 1973;
Matthews 1975.

QUATERNARY VERTEBRATE FAUNAS IN ALASKA

Since the Russian Admiral Kotzebue first published an account in 1821
mentioning ice-age mammal fossils from Eschscholtz Bay, a great deal has
become known about Pleistocene vertebrates of Alaska. The bulk of this
information has come from the Fairbanks area, where an extensive collecting
program was initiated in 1928 with the beginning of large-scale gold mining
there. Although tens of thousands of specimens from placer localities near
Fairbanks are stored in the Frick Collection of the American Museum of Natural
History in New York, their potential value is diminished by the lack of

accompanying stratigraphic data.

63

Detailed and extensive stratigraphic studies of Pleistocene deposits,
by T.L. Péwé and D.M. Hopkins in particular, have contributed greatly to
overcoming this problem (Péwé and Hopkins 1967; Péwé 1975a, b). Largely as a
result of their work, an approximate idea of the chronological sequence of
Alaskan Pleistocene mammal faunas can be provided (Table 1). This
preliminary model must be reviewed carefully in the future, and corrected and
augmented as better biostratigraphic evidence becomes available.

Another weakness in our knowledge of Alaskan Pleistocene vertebrates is
the lack of detailed published descriptions with illustrations, measurements
and comparative data. At least 48 per cent of the species listed at present

must be regarded as floating names lacking firm scientific anchors (Table 1).

As in the Yukon Territory, most Pleistocene vertebrate fossils are from
the unglaciated parts of Alaska. The Fairbanks area in central Alaska is
extremely important in discussions of Alaskan ice-age vertebrates. Much of it
lies within the Tanana River floodplain at an altitude of 400 feet (120 m),
and the rest lies within the upland, where hills have summits varying from
i250! to, 1800 Feet _(S80N and 550) m)) above) sea level. Lt as situated south of
the Brooks Range and north of the Alaska Range, both of which were covered by
masses of ice during peaks of Pleistocene glaciation.

Quaternary sediments consisting of loess and reworked loess and stream
deposits are found mainly in and near valleys. Creek gravel of local origin
underlies wind-blown sediments in the valley bottoms, and solifluction debris
underlies this windblown material on lower and middle slopes. The sediments
are periglacial in nature and now are mainly perennially frozen (Péwé 1975b).

At Eva Creek mining cut near Fairbanks, an exposed sedimentary sequence
provides a key to understanding the depositional history and consequently the
Plerstocene vertebrate faunal’ sequence of the region. There, more than
1 metre* (3.3 ft) of Fox Gravel (?pre-Yarmouth) is overlain by 1 metre (3.3 ft)
of highly organic silts of the Dawson Cut Formation (?Yarmouth interglacial);
20 metres (66 ft) of Gold Hill Loess (Illinoian glacial) containing bones of
mammoth and bison; 1 metre (3.3 ft) of silt of the Eva Formation (Sangamon
interglacial) containing loess and tree stumps, one of which has yielded a
radiocarbon date of >56,900 B.P. (HV-1328); 15 metres (50 ft) of frozen silt
with ice wedges of the Goldstream Formation (Wisconsin glacial) containing

fPéwé (1975a, b) cites measurements in metres. In such cases metric
quantities are given first, followed by their English equivalents.

64

TABLE 1. Suggested Chronological Sequence of Alaskan Pleistocene Mammals
(modified from Péwé and Hopkins 1967 and Péwé 1975 a, b).

Age

Pleistocene Mammals Recorded

Postglacial
(includes only the
portion from about
10,000 te 5000 BP.)

Wisconsin
Gaetan

Castor sp. (beaver)

Microtus xanthognathus (chestnut-cheeked vole)
Alces alces* (moose)

Bison btson (small-horned bison)

Sorex cf. arctieus* (arctic shrew)

Megalonyx sp. (ground sloth)

Lepus sp.* (hare)

Spermophilus parryt (ground squirrel)

Castor sp.* (beaver)

Dicrostonyx torquatus (collared lemming)
Synaptomys sp.** (bog lemming)

Lemmus sitbiriceus (brown lemming)

Clethrtonomys sp. (red-backed vole)

Microtus (Stenocrantus) mturus (singing vole)
Erethtzon sp.* (porcupine)

Cants lupus* (wolf)

Canis dirus** (dire wolf)

Cants latrans* (coyote)

Aloper lagopus (arctic Fox)

Vulpes vucpes= (Tred tox)

Arctodus stmus yukonensts* (Yukon short-faced bear)
Ursus arctos* (brown bear)

Gulo sp.* (wolverine)

Taxtdea sp.* (badger)

Lynx canadensts* (lynx)

Panthera leo atrox (American lion)

Smilodon sp.** (sabretooth cat)

Homotherium sp.** (scimitar cat)

Mammut americanum (American mastodon)

Mammuthus primigenius (woolly mammoth)

Equus (Asinus) lambet (Yukon wild ass)

Equus (Asinus) cf. ktang* (Kiang-like wild ass)
Equus sp. (horse)

Camelops sp. (camel)

Cervus elaphus (wapiti)

Alces latifrons (= Cervalces alaskensis) (giant moose)
Alees alces* (moose)

Rangtfer tarandus (caribou)

Bos sp. (yak-like bovid)

Bison alaskensis (Alaskan bison)
Bison geisti (Geist's bison)
Bison crasstcornis (large-horned bison)
Bison bison (small-horned bison)
Satga tatarica (= Saiga ricet) (saiga antelope)
Boôtherium sargentt (extinct muskox)
Symbos cavifrons (extinct muskox)

Ovtbos moschatus (tundra muskox)

(= Bison
priscus?)

Ovts dalli (Dall sheep)

65

SUNS JL Come Gls ain

Age

Pleistocene Mammals Recorded

Sangamon
Interglacial

ITllinoian
Glacial

?Yarmouth
Interglacial

?Kansan
Glacial

66

Ondatra zibethteus* (muskrat)

Cetacea* (large whale)

Eumetoptas sp.* (sea lion)

Odobenus sp.* (walrus)

Hydrodamalis sp. (sea cow)

Bison ecrasstecornts (large-horned bison)
Castoridae* (beaver)

Alces sp.* (moose)

Ochotona ?whartont (?giant pika)
Spermophilus parryt (ground squirrel)
Castoridae (beaver)

Dierostonyx torquatus (collared lemming)
Lemmus sibtricus (brown lemming)
Miecrotus (Stenocrantus) miurus (singing vole)
Cants sp.* (wolf)

Vulpes sp.* (fox)

Cuon sp.* (= Xenocyon) (dhole)

Ursus sp.* (bear)

Panthera leo atrox* (American lion)
Mammut sp.* (mastodon)

Mammuthus sp.* (mammoth)

Equus sp.* (horse or wild ass)

Cervus sp.* (wapiti)

Alces latifrons* (= Cervalees sp.) (giant moose)
Alees sp.* (moose)

Rangtfer sp.* (caribou)

Bison crassicornts* (large-horned bison)
Satga tatarica* (saiga antelope)
Praeovtbos sp.* (Staudinger's muskox)
Boôtherium sp.* (extinct muskox)

Symbos cavtfrons* (extinct muskox)
Ovtbos moschatus (tundra muskox)

Ovis sp.* (mountain sheep)

Dierostonyx torquatus* (collared lemming)
?Rangifer sp.* (caribou)
Bison crassicornis* (large-horned bison)

Pliomys sp. (meadow mouse)

Microtus sp. (vole)

Mammuthus sp.* (mammoth) ?Kansan ?Nebraskan

Bison crassicornis* (large-horned bison) ?Kansan
?Nebraskan

TABLE 1.

@oinie! Gly a.

Age

?Nebraskan
Glacial

Pleistocene Mammals Recorded

Sorex sp. (shrew)

Ochotona whartont (giant pika)

Marmota sp. (marmot)

Spermophilus sp. (ground squirrel)
Predicrostonyx hopkinst (Hopkins' lemming)
Lemmus cf. sibirieus (brown lemming)
Pltomys deeringensis (Deering meadow mouse)
Microtus deceitensis (Cape Deceit vole)
Canis sp. (?wolf)

Equus sp. (large horse)

Cervus cf. elaphus (wapiti)

Rangtfer sp. (caribou)

* Detailed published descriptions of specimens are lacking.

** Doubtfully represented.

67

bones of ground squirrel (Spermophilus parryi), collared lemming (Diecrostonyzx
torquatus), brown lemming (Lemmus sibiricus), singing vole (Microtus
(Stenocrantus) mturus) and mammoth (Mammuthus sp.); 2 metres (6.6 ft) of
reworked loess of the Ready Bullion Formation (postglacial), containing wood
at the base that yiellded a radiocarbon date of 10,000) = 500 BP (L-1375)-
Deposits that I correlate with this formation can be recognized in both the
Old Crow and Dawson areas of the Yukon Territory.

As Péwé (1975b:15) has indicated, the Goldstream Formation is the "greatest
repository of remains of Pleistocene vertebrates in Alaska, if not North
America". He accounts for this concentration of bones as follows: the
Goldstream Formation is a valley-bottom deposit, and most bones are
transported down-slope to valley bottoms; older Illinoian valley-bottom
sediments have been mostly removed; and sediments of this -formation were
frozen soon after deposition. The commonest fossils of large mammals from this
formation are, in order of abundance, bison, mammoth and horse (Guthrie 1968a).
Among the small late-Pleistocene mammals sampled from near Fairbanks, the
singing vole (Microtus (Stenocranius) mturus) was most common, indicating that
the area was above tree line and had well-drained soil (Guthrie 1968b).

Probably the most interesting specimens from the Goldstream Formation near
Fairbanks are partly preserved carcasses of pika (Ochotona princeps collarts),
ground squirrel (Spermophilus parryt), lynx (Lynx canadensis), mammoth
(Mammuthus sp.). horse (Equus sp.), moose (Alces alces), caribou (Rangifer
tarandus), extinct muskoxen (Bodtherium sargenti and Symbos cavifrons), and
large-horned bison (Bison ecrassicornis) (Péwé 1975a). The best-known of these
is the juvenile mammoth specimen collected in 1948 from Fairbanks Creek. The
well-preserved hide of the head, neck, trunk and a front leg is about 6 mm
(4 in.) thick and almost hairless. A sample of the hide yielded a seemingly
reasonable radiocarbon date of 21,300 + 1,300 B.P. (L-601), but the date could
be questioned because the carcass was preserved in commercial glycerine. Hair
preserved with the skull and tusks of a mammoth from Dome Creek was
radiocarbon dated at 32,700 + 980 B.P. (ST-1632).

A remarkably well-preserved carcass of a large-horned bison was found in
perennially frozen silt during the course of mining at Dome Creek in 1951.
The specimen consists of a head, complete with hide, hornsheaths and an ear,
and the lower part of the body, including the four legs with hooves (Figure 15).
Hide and hair from this carcass gave a radiocarbon date of 31,400 + 2,040 B.P.
(ST-1721). Pieces of fur and hide from a Bison crassicornis cow from
Fairbanks Creek have yielded a radiocarbon date of 11,980 + 135 B.P.
(ST-1633), which approaches the terminal date for this species in eastern
Beringia (Péwé 1975a).

68

FMGUREMLS;

Parttal carcass of an extinet large-horned bison

(Bison crassicornis) from perennially frozen silt of
Wisconsin age on Dome Creek near Fatrbanks, Alaska.
The collector, the late Otto Geist, ts examining a

fragment of the hide. Photograph by T.L. Péwé.

69

A nearly complete carcass of a small extinct muskox, possibly
Boétherium sargentt, was preserved in deposits on a creek near Fairbanks.
Samples of hair and dessicated flesh from the specimen gave dates of
17,210: = S00" B.P. (SL-454) and 24,140, = 2,200 BuP. WS1-455)) respectively.
A hornsheath from this species yielded a radiocarbon date of 22,540 + 900 B.P.
(SI-292). Hair and droppings were found with a skeleton of the extinct
muskox Symbos cavifrons. The droppings, which are slightly larger than the
typical winter pellets of the tundra muskox (Ovtbos moschatus), gave a
radiocarbon date of >40,000 B.P. (SI-291). Analysis of plant detritus in the
Symbos pellets suggested that the animal had been feeding on a rather dry site
with grasses and sedges (Harington 1968). A hornsheath from another Symbos
specimen from Cleary Creek was dated at 25,090 + 1,070 B.P. (SI-850).
Probably Bodtherium sargentt and Symbos cavifrons are female and male,
respectively, of the same species.

Several complete ground-squirrel carcasses have been found in nests in
permafrost. Radiocarbon analyses of nest material and ground-squirrel
droppings from sites on the Chatanika River gave dates of 14,760 + 850 B.P.
(GX-0250) and 14,510 = 450 B-P. (W-2703) respectively (Péwé 1975b). As the
samples were below and above the Chatanika Ash Bed, they helped to provide a
date for it. Such ash deposits are widespread in Alaska and the Yukon, and
their mineralogical characteristics are like fingerprints, which may allow
correlations of ice-age deposits over long distances. Seeds of Arctic
buttercup (Ranunculus hyperboreus) and a cinquefoil (Potentilla sp.) found in a
ground-squirrel cache of Wisconsin age on Dome Creek suggest the former
presence of tundra-like conditions there.

The discovery of a complete mummified pika from 50 feet (15.2 m) below the
surface near Chatanika indicates that the alpine fauna spread into the
lowlands, and occupied a drier more steppe-like environment than now prevails
there. It also suggests that Ochotona princeps collaris and 0. princeps
princeps subspeciated in Beringian and southern refugia respectively
(Guthrie 1973)"

Carcasses of ice-age mammals usually show some signs of decay, and rather
than explaining such cases by a catastrophically sudden change of climate and
a consequent ''deep-freezing" of northern species like the mammoth (Sanderson
1960), it is most likely that many of the animals died naturally or
accidentally in autumn and were covered by near-freezing sediments, such as
solifluction deposits (Péwé 1975a). Various possiblities of this sort are
mentioned by Farrand (1961) and Vereshchagin (1974).

70

A.E. Porsild (personal communication, 1970) told me about an interesting
case that bears on this problem. In July 1947, about 25 of 150 reindeer
(Rangifer tarandus) that went down to the beach for a drink at Nicholson
Peninsula, Northwest Territories, became mired in solifluction muck below
the sea cliffs. Porsild helped the herders to pull out 18 but 7 could not
be saved and were ''sucked under" in a very short time. Presumably they are
well preserved in permafrost, and should they be exposed by relative uplift
and erosion of the area in future would probably look like the mammal
carcasses of late-Pleistocene age found in Alaska and Siberia.

Ice-age vertebrate remains have been reported from many areas other than
Fairbanks. Perhaps the most important of these is Cape Deceit on Kotzebue
Sound, where the oldest sediments (early Pleistocene — ?Nebraskan) contain
the first North American record of the Eurasian rodent Pliomys and the most
primitive representatives of other rodents whose members dominate
contemporary tundra faunas, such as Predicrostonyx hopkinst and Microtus
deceitensis (Guthrie and Matthews 1971).

L.S. Quackenbush (1909), who led an American Museum of Natural History

expedition in search of Pleistocene vertebrate remains in 1907 and 1908, made

many valuable observations in the vicinity of Eschscholtz Bay, which adjoins
Kotzebue Sound to the east. He reported 10 genera and 14 species of
Pleistocene mammals from this region. Among the most interesting of the
specimens that Quackenbush (1909:107-10) collected was a partly articulated
skeleton of an individual mammoth (Mammuthus sp.) embedded in floodplain
sediments at Historic Bluff. The skeleton comprised the following parts:
right half of the pelvis, the femur, tibia and fibula, four small foot-bones
skull fragments and two tusks, mandible with teeth, six thoracic vertebrae,
several caudal vertebrae including the end of the tail encased in skin and
hair, several broken ribs, and some pieces of flesh, skin, underwool, and
coarser hair. A small, thin patch of chewed green grass was cut out of
frozen sandy silt close to the mandible. Fragments of caribou tibia and
possibly caribou dung (four small oval droppings), a wolf skull, and a
complete horse phalanx appear to have been associated with the mammoth.

Other faunas are known from Tofty and Lost Chicken Creek.

Pleistocene vertebrate fossils have been reported on the Arctic Coastal
Plain for many years (Péwé 1975a). I have identified the following mammals
from a collection of fossils made by W. Quaide along the Kuk and Ikpikpuk
rivers: Canis cf. lupus (wolf), Ursus cf. aretos (brown bear), Mammuthus
primigentus (woolly mammoth), Equus (Asinus) lambet (Yukon wild ass), Alces

alces (moose), Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Bison erassicornis (large-horned

3

fa

bison), Saiga tatarica (saiga antelope), Ovibos moschatus (tundra muskox).
These specimens are probably of late-Pleistocene age.

Remains of woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigentus) have been discovered
occasionally on St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs and on Unalaska and
St. Lawrence islands (Ray 1971). They provide direct evidence that mammoths
occupied these parts of the Bering Isthmus during glacial phases of the late
Pleistocene.

Marine-mammal remains are known from sites mainly near the west coast of
Alaska. C.A. Repenning has provided unpublished preliminary identifications
of many of these fossils. Walrus (Odobenus sp.) fossils have been reported
from Sangamon interglacial deposits at Nome and near Point Lay at the mouth
of the Kokolik River, from late-Pleistocene sediments south of Kuk Inlet,
and from Nelson and St. Lawrence islands. Remains of sea lion (Fumetopias sp)
have been reported from Sangamon deposits on St. Paul Island and Amchitka.
Fossils of northern fur seal (?Callorhinus sp.), harbour seal (Phoca vitulina)
and ringed seal (P. (Pusa) hispida) have been reported from various
Pleistocene strata in western Alaska. Whale vertebral discs of possible
Pleistocene age were collected near the mouth of the Inglutalik River
(Péwé 1975a). A radius fragment of a large whale was found in Sangamon
gravels on Amchitka.

O£ great interest is the discovery o£ remains of Steller's sea cow
(Hydrodamalis gigas) from beach deposits 35 metres* (115 ft) above sea level
on Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands (Gard, Lewis and Whitmore 1972). A piece
of sea-cow bone was submitted for uranium series dating. The Th230 and Pa?3!
dates (135,000 + 12,000 B.P. and >122,000 B.P.) are considered concordant,
and, in conjunction with the presence of unweathered till overlying the beach
deposit, indicate that Steller's sea cow occupied this part of the North
Pacific during Sangamon time. Hydrodamalis may have evolved from an ancestor
such as Metaxytherium on the margins of the North Pacific during the early
Pliocene. During glacial maxima, sea cows — like walruses — evidently
ranged much farther south than they did in historic time, as is indicated by
a radiocarbon date of 18,940 + 1,100 B.P. (SI-115) on a Hydrodamalis gigas
skull-fragment brought up in a trawl from the bottom of Monterey Bay,
California (Jones 1967).

“See footnote on p, 64.

72

Fishes are rarely reported from Alaskan Pleistocene deposits. Remains of
small freshwater fishes have been identified from Unit B at Tofty, which may
range from late Pleistocene to Recent in age (Repenning, Hopkins and Rubin
1964). Fish remains recovered from estuarine silt of Sangamon age at Nome
(Hopkins, MacNeil and Leopold 1960; D.M. Hopkins, personal communication,
1976) include most of a postcranial skeleton of a starry flounder
(Platichthys stellatus), identified by W.I. Follett, and two premaxillae and
a mandible of a rock sole (Leptdopsetta bilineata), identified by J.E. Fitch.
This material was found with a pair of walrus tusks and a mollusc fauna that
is distinctive of Pelukian (Sangamon) marine deposits in northwestern Alaska.

Bones of unspecified birds of Pleistocene age have been reported from the
Fairbanks area, but they are rare (Péwé 1975a). The shaft of an eagle
(?Aqutla sp.), possibly of late-Pleistocene age was collected by Quaide on the
Kuk River. Gizzard stones of birds from Wisconsin loess at Eva and Ready
Bullion creeks near Fairbanks were probably mainly produced by ptarmigan or
grouse (Hoskin, Guthrie and Hoffman 1970).

Artifacts associated with late-Pleistocene mammal remains that were
exposed in the course of placer-mining operations in central Alaska were
reported as early as 1933: During 1933 to 1938, 19 artifacts were recorded
from the muck deposits along six streams near Fairbanks. Two fluted points
were found in situ 60 feet (18.2 m) from the surface. One of these was
directly associated with bones of a young "mastodon" (Rainey 1940), which I

suggest were probably from a woolly mammoth.

Evidence concerning 1960 to 1970 research on early man in Alaska has been
summarized by Irving (1971). A series of bison bones, including a calcaneum,
that were broken by man were found in the lowest levels of Cave 9 near Trail
Creek (Larsen 1968). The calcaneum gave a radiocarbon date of 13,070 + 280
B.P. (K-1327), and bone from a horse scapula found in front of the cave was
radiocarbon dated at 15,5750 4 350) BaP (K-1210). At the Valiage Site: nean
Healy Lake, radiocarbon analysis of burnt bone yielded a date of
11,090 + 170 B.P. (GX-1341). Six teardrop-shaped points and other stone
artifacts are evidently associated with the radiocarbon-dated material.
Fluted points have been reported from a number of sites in Alaska. Notable
among these are obsidian fluted points from Batza Tena (Clark 1972; Clark and
Clark 1975), and four fluted points with Clovis affinities from a site im the
Sagavanirktok Valley (Alexander 1971). The latter may be of early
postglacial age. Perhaps these fluted-point sites are indicative of a
northward dispersal of Palaeo-Indian hunters into Alaska that paralleled their
movement into the Canadian Shield (e.g. Acasta Lake and Grant Lake sites in

the Northwest Territories). But more evidence is required to determine

73

whether fluted points originated in southern or northern North America.

Faunas

Lost Chicken Creek, Alaska (placer locality below highway —

64°03. 2°N, “140 252 6 NW)

28.

Z9P

74

Mammals - Panthera leo atrox (American lion), Mammuthus primigentius

(woolly mammoth), Equus (Asinus) lambet (Yukon wild ass),
Equus (Asinus) cf. kiang (Kiang-like wild ass), Cervus elaphus
(wapiti), Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Bison crassicornis
(1arge-horned bison), Symbos cavifrons (extinct muskox),

Ovts cf. dalli (large mountain sheep).

Suggested Age - Late Wisconsin, Horse (Equus sp.) and bison

(Bison sp.) bone yielded radiocarbon dates of 26,760 + 300 B.P.
(SI-355)) and) 105370) #160 Bue. (1-8582) respectively:

Remarks - Presumably the fossils are mainly from the base of the

frozen black organic silt. This muck unit reaches thicknesses
Of (oy todl2 feet (0244 toss. 2m). Lt sas underlaïineby 1/55 -tola5
feet (0.5 to 4.6 m) of gold-bearing gravels and sands that cover
the local bedrock; and is) overlain by 1 to 4 feet (0.35 to, 1.2m)
of buff silt. The mammals probably occupied a cool steppe-like

grassland.

References - Harington 1974 field notes; Whitmore and Foster 1967.

Fairbanks area, Alaska (Fairbanks Creek, Engineer Creek, Cripple Creek,
Gold Hill, Eva Creek, Ready Bullion Bench, Sheep Creek, Chena Ridge,

West Dawson Cut — see Guthrie 1968a, b for locality details)

Mammals - Lepus sp. (hare), Spermophilus parryi (ground squirrel),

Dterostonyx torquatus (collared lemming), Lemmus stbiricus
(brown lemming), Mierotus (Stenocranius) mturus (singing vole),
Microtus xanthognathus (chestnut cheeked vole), Canis lupus
(wolf), Canis latrans (coyote), Ursus aretos (brown bear),
Panthera leo atrox (American lion), Felidae (?Homothertium sp.,
scimitar cat), Mammut americanum (American mastodon), Mammuthus
primigentus (woolly mammoth), Equus sp. (horse), Camelops sp.
(camel), Cervus elaphus (wapiti), Alces latifrons (giant moose),
Alces alces (moose), Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Bas sp.
(yak-like bovid), Bison crassicornis (large-horned bison),

Satga tatarica (saiga antelope), Bodtherium sp.(extinct muskox),

Symbos cavtfrons (extinct muskox), Ovibos moschatus (tundra muskox),

Ovis dallt (Dall sheep).

Suggested Age - Late Pleistocene (Illinoian to Wisconsin, but mainly
Wisconsin).

Remarks - Deposits at Fairbanks, Engineer and Cripple creeks consist
mainly of Wisconsin-age silt, but pre-Wisconsin sediments are
present. The Gold Hald, site is on a bench of Cripple) Creek,
and although Wisconsin sediments are present most deposits are
of Illinoian age.

The section at Eva Creek has been described previously in the
text. The Goldstream Formation (Wisconsin) and the Gold Hill
Loess (Illinoian) produce most of the vertebrate fossils. At
Ready Bullion Bench, two gravel layers are separated by about
2.5 metres* (8.2 ft) of brown silt at the base of the section.
Overlying these gravels is a greenish silt unit 2 metres

(626 £t) thick (?211linowan) and 12 to 14 metres (40) to 60 £t)) ot
frozen loess (Wisconsin). There is a thin surface deposit of
postglacial age. At Sheep Creek, brown silt with fossil tree-
roots overlies basal gravel on the west wall. Woody silts, peat
and volcanic ash are exposed 3.5 to 5 metres (11.5 to 16.4 ft)
above the basal gravel. On the east wall, part of a greenish
Silt unit (?Iilinoian) was exposed. The contact between it and
the overlying unit, possibly containing reworked Sangamon
fossils in Wisconsin deposits, lay approximately 15 metres

(49 ft) above the basal gravel. Unreworked loess containing an
ash layer was exposed at Chena Ridge. Organic loess enclosing

a partial mammoth skeleton was exposed at the West Dawson Cut.
Wood from this deposit has been radiocarbon dated at >29,000 B.P.

Bison, horse and mammoth are the commonest species recorded from
the large mammal localities (Fairbanks, Engineer and Cripple
creeks, and Gold Hill). The high percentage of grazing mammals
suggests that this part of central Alaska was basically a
grassland environment during the late Pleistocene (Illinoian and
Wisconsin). Trees were present in interglacial times. Giant
moose (Alces lattfrons), moose (A. alces) and American mastodon
(Mammut americanum) suggest the presence of trees, although
specimens representing these mammals are rare. The singing vole

(Microtus (Stenocrantus) miurus) dominates Illinoian and
Wisconsin rodent faunas, indicating that the region was above the

tree line and was characterized by well-drained grassland.

* See footnote on p. 64.

75

Extinction of the singing vole, ground squirrel and collared
lemming in interior Alaska suggests a rapid reduction of their
preferred grassland habitat at the end of the Wisconsin.

Matthews's study (1974b) of pollen and of plant and
invertebrate macrofossils from a 27-metre (90 ft) core from the
Fairbanks area provides a palaeoenvironmental profile of the
latter half of the Wisconsin glaciation. He suggests that from
35,000 to 32,000 B.P., during a mid-Wisconsin interstadial, the
spruce tree-line was lower than at present. The late-Wisconsin
environment was characterized by steppe-tundra vegetation and a
severe Arctic climate. By 8,500 B.P., spruce forests and some
associated boreal species had returned to the area.

References = Frick 1930, 1937; Geist 1953; Guthrie 1968a, 1968b,
1972; Matthews 1974b; Péwé 1975b; Skinner and Kaisen 1947.

30. Sullivan Pit, Alaska (Tofty Placer District — 65°05'N, 150°52'W)

Fishes - "Small fish" (species not determined).

Mammals - Lepus sp. (hare), Spermophilus parryi (arctic ground
squirrel), Castor sp. (beaver; indirect evidence from gnawed
wood), Dicrostonyx torquatus (collared lemming), Synaptomys sp.*
(bog lemming), Lemmus stbirieus (brown lemming), Clethrionomys
sp. (red-backed vole), Microtus (Stenocrantus) miurus (singing
vole), Microtus sp. (large vole), Proboscidea (mammoth or
mastodon), Equus (Asinus) sp. (wild ass), ?Alces sp. (moose),
?Rangitfer sp. (caribou), Bison sp. (bison), Caprini (probably
sheep).

Suggested Age - Late Pleistocene (probably Wisconsin to postglacial).

Remarks - Four stratigraphic units are recognized. Evidently the
upper two, units A and B, were deposited between 1760 and 1916,
when material was excavated or eroded from older sediments
higher on the slopes and redeposited. Unit A consists of 10 to
30 feet (3.1 to 9.1 m) of silt. Logs extracted from a mass of
beaver-gnawed wood near the top of the unit yielded radiocarbon
dates of 6,730 + 260 B.P. (W-1108), while wood from one foot
(0.3 m) above the base of the unit is more than 38,000 years old
(W-1113). Remains of moose (?Alces sp.) and bison were found in
this unit. Most vertebrate fossils are from unit B, which is a

*C.A. Repenning (personal communication, 1976) considers this identification
untrustworthy. The specimen is lost.

76

discontinuous channel fill consisting of gravel, sand and silt
cut 2 to 15 feet (0.6 to 4.6 m) into sediments of unit C. Wood
from unit B yielded dates of Tess than 200 B.P. (W-1106, W-1111),
200 4.200, B.P: (W-937)) and 2,520 + 200 B.P. (W-891). This
unusual sequence of dates may have resulted from reworking of
sediments in the course of placer operations. Shells of
pelecypods and gastropods and remains of insect and plant
macrofossils were also derived from unit B. Unit C consists of
5 to 20 feet (1.5 to 6.1 m) of grey muck, whose base grades into
unit D. Wood from near the top of unit D, which consists of 10
to 20 feet (3.0 to 6.1 m) of gravel, sand and silt, gave a
radiocarbon date of more than 39,000 B.P. (W-895). Units C and
D are probably of Wisconsin age. Unit D is underlain by slate,
phyllite, and greywacke of Cretaceous age.

It is difficult to interpret this fauna in palaeoenvironmental
terms. Fossils from units A and B represent a mixture of forest
(e.g. rooted spruce stumps, beaver-gnawed wood, and remains of
red-backed vole, Clethrionomys sp.) and steppe—tundra forms (the
remainder of the fauna). Presumably the steppe—tundra mammals
have been concentrated from Wisconsin age sediments of unit C,
while the moist-forest element lived in spruce woodland that

existed in the area during postglacial time.

Reference - Repenning, Hopkins and Rubin 1964.

ol Cape: Deceit, "Alaska, (66705!N, 162750" Wi Cape Deceit, Formation)

Mammals - Sorex sp. (shrew), Ochotona whartont (giant pika),
Marmota sp. (marmot), Spermophilus sp. (ground squirrel),
Predicrostonyx hopkinst (Hopkins's lemming), Lemmus cf. sibiricus
(brown lemming), Pliomys deeringensis* (Deering meadow mouse),
Microtus deceitensis (Cape Deceit vole), Canis sp. (?wolf),
Equus sp. (large horse), Cervus cf. elaphus (wapiti), Rangifer
sp. (caribou).

Suggested Age - ?Nebraskan (pre-Cromerian). Matthews (1974a)
considers that the Cape Deceit Formation was deposited between
400,000 and 900,000 years ago, but this estimate may be too
young. The early evolutionary stages represented by
Predicrostonyx hopkinst and Microtus deceitensis are important

indicators of the age of this fauna.

*Chaline (1975) argues that this animal represents the oldest known heather
vole and should be called Phenacomys deeringensis.

7

Remarks - Vertebrate fossils are from sand and silt facies of the

Cape Deceit Formation, which consists of two units separated by
a peat layer. Most of the large mammal fossils are from Unit 1,
which consists mainly of gravels, sands and organic silts

2.5 metres* (8.2 ft) thick with interbedded peaty zones.
Solifluction structures are present. Mammal fossils are
concentrated in thin sand beds throughout the grey organic silt
5.5 metres (ies £e) thick sthae dominates, Unit 2.) ihas unit
contains frost structures and is capped by silty peat. The
overlying Inmachuk Formation of ?Kansan (?Mindel) age is
approximately 4 metres (13.1 ft) thick, and consists of
oxidized sand and reworked loess, with a deformed and truncated
zone of peaty silt near the contact with the overlying Deering
Formation. Sparse remains of Pliomys sp. and Microtus sp. are
reported from the Inmachuk Formation. The Deering Formation of
PYarmouth to postglacial age,is. 35 to.4 metres (9:8+to 135.1 £t)
thick, and consists of two mainly organic silty units bounded
by peat zones. Frost.cracks occur near the surface of Unit 1.
Teeth of Hensel's lemming (Dierostonyx cf. henselt) came from
near the base of Unit 1, which appears to be of Illinoian age.
Fossils of the collared lemming (D. torquatus), brown lemming
(Lemmus cf. sibiriceus) and vole (Mierotus sp.) have also been
reported from the Deering Formation. Peat separating Units 1
and 2 yielded a date of >39,900 B.P. (I-4099), and appears to be
of Sangamon age. Radiocarbon analyses of wood below the surface
peat of Unit 2 and from the base of the surface peat yielded
dates of 125420) 4 180 B.P: (14781) and).9),150 4: 150) B.Pes 1004780)
respectively. They indicate that Unit 2 includes deposits of
Wisconsin to postglacial age.

Stratigraphic features demonstrate that mammals from the Cape
Deceit Formation lived in a tundra environment. Palaeobotanical
data support the idea that a herbaceous tundra with rare alders
and birches and abundant cinquefoils (Potentilla sp.) covered

the region during ?Nebraskan time.

Guthrie and Matthews (1971) infer from the evidence at Cape
Deceit that the contemporary mammal fauna of the tundra has had
a longer time to adapt to Arctic tundra conditions than was
previously suspected. They postulate the existence of a
Beringian mammal realm that periodically contributed to the

faunas of more southerly regions of Eurasia and North America.

*See footnote on p. 64.

78

References - Guthrie and Matthews 1971; Matthews 1974a.

DISCUSSION AND SUMMARY

In conclusion, I wish to review briefly some of the important features of
the Quaternary vertebrate faunas of Canada and Alaska in sequence from oldest
to youngest, and in relation to a few of the better-known faunas of
northeastern Siberia (Appendix) and the Great Plains of the United States.

The preliminary nature of much of the faunal evidence from northern North
America and consequently of the conclusions I draw from it must be emphasized.

Only in the last ten years has it become clear that early- and middle-
Pleistocene vertebrate faunas are present in Canada and Alaska. The oldest
of these are faunas from Cape Deceit, Alaska, and Wellsch Valley,
Saskatchewan. The former appears to be of ?Nebraskan age, and evidently lived
in herbaceous tundra surroundings. The Cape Deceit lagomorphs and rodents are
particularly interesting. Ochotona whartont is a giant pika that may have
lived in grasslands rather than on scree slopes, as do its living North
American relatives. It may have survived in Alaska until Illinoian time, for
a complete skull with mandibles, which Péwé (1975b) considers to be of that
age, was collected from the Gold Hill Cut near Fairbanks. However, the
mandible of the Gold Hill specimen is smaller than those of giant pika
described from Cape Deceit and Old Crow (Harington 1976 MS), and it may only
represent the upper size range of Ochotona princeps during the late
Pleistocene in eastern Beringia. I have referred two giant-pika mandibles from
the Olid (Crow Basin, to 0. cf. whartonz. 1 thank they could be of early,
Pleistocene age. Predicrostonyx hopkinst is more primitive in tooth
characteristics than the collared lemming Dicrostonyx torquatus, and slightly
more primitive than an early species of Dicrostonyx described from the Olyor
fauna (?Kansan) of the Kolyma Lowland in northeastern Siberia. The earliest
North American record of Pliomys (P. deeringensis) is from Cape Deceit. It
seems to be more primitive than P. episcopalis and P. lenki from early middle
Pleistocene assemblages in Eurasia. There appears to be little difference
between Microtus deceitensis and some Microtus specimens from the Olyor fauna
(Matthews 1974a).

The Cape Deceit fauna also includes the earliest known North American
records of caribou (Rangifer sp.) and wapiti (Cervus cf. elaphus). Until
recently these deer were considered to be late Pleistocene immigrants from
Eurasia to North America (Guthrie 1966; Hibbard et al. 1965). The hoof of a
large horse (Equus sp.) represented in the fauna may be comparable to a large

horse (E. (Plesippus) sp.) that Sher (1971a) reports from the Begunov suite

79

(?Nebraskan) of the Kolyma Lowland.

Of great interest is the identification of fossils of Microtus deceitensis
and Pliomys cf. deeringensts at Wellsch Valley, which may indicate a roughly
similar age for the Cape Deceit and Wellsch Valley faunas and a southern
invasion from Beringia about Aftonian time. Perhaps the muskox represented at
Wellsch Valley travelled a similar route. Crucial in this fauna are fossils
of the southern mammoth (Mammuthus cf. meridionalis) and the bone-eating dog
(Borophagus diversidens). The former is the most primitive North American
species of mammoth (Maglio 1973). It probably entered from Eurasia near the
beginning of the Pleistocene, about 2 million years ago, and this record could
be one of the earliest for North America. Borophagus diversidens may be a
late survivor. Again, it suggests a very early Pleistocene age for the
Welisch Valley fauna. The species has also been reported from the Blanco
fauna, which Hibbard (1970) considered to be of Aftonian age.

Thus, the Wellsch Valley fauna consists of northern and southern elements.
The former includes Pliomys, Microtus, Synaptomys, Mammuthus, and a muskox
(Ovibovini). Most of the remaining genera have southern North American
affinities, and this faunal element is perhaps most closely related to the
Cita Canyon fauna of Texas and the Cudahy fauna from Kansas and Texas.
Hibbard (1970) considered these to be of Aftonian and Kansan ages,
respectively.

Comparison of the fauna of Kansan age at Medicine Hat with the Wellsch
Valley fauna shows that the southern mammoth (Mammuthus meridtonalis)
persisted on the southern plains of Canada, as did prongbucks and camels.

The earliest record of ground sloths derived from the south may indicate the
presence of more shrubs and trees, while the beaver denotes moist habitat.
Bone-eating dogs had given way to primitive wolves (Canis cf. etruseus). The
Etruscan wolf characterized Villafranchian faunas of Europe, and perhaps gave
Gasie: to the vans wollt iCants lupus

Mammoths (Mammuthus sp.) and large-horned bison (Bison crasstcornis) are
first recorded from Alaska in deposits that may be of Kansan age (Table 1).
Primitive, small, high-horned muskoxen (Soergelia) dispersed rapidly
throughout the Holarctic region about this time, occurring in Germany, Siberia,
the Yukon Territory, and Texas.

the firste record "of the giant bison (Bison cf... Cattfrons) on. the North
American plains is from Yarmouth interglacial deposits near Medicine Hat. The
species does not seem to have established itself in the Great Plains of the
United States until early Illinoian time. It is reasonable to consider the

80

"blossoming" of the horns of this species a response to its competitive edge
following introduction to the highly productive grassland environment of the
southern plains. Bison lattfrons survived until late Wisconsin time in Idaho
(McDonald and Anderson 1975). Jefferson's ground sloth (Megalonyx jeffersont)
first occurs in southwestern Canada during this interglacial. Evidently it
had an adaptive advantage in northern regions not found in other ground sloths,
for by Sangamon time it still lived in southwestern Canada and was the only
member of this group to have reached eastern Beringia. By Yarmouth time, the
southern mammoth had been replaced by the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbt).

It is worth noting that the genera and species of mammals represented in
the Yarmouth fauna of Medicine Hat all occur in the following Sangamon
interglacial fauna from this locality. A remarkable faunal, and by
implication environmental, uniformity continued throughout this relatively
long period of time. Indeed, a basically uniform dry-grassland fauna seems
to have lasted in the southwestern plains of Canada until Wisconsin time,
when the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigentus) reached the area.

As would be expected, there is a great similarity in the mammal faunas of
eastern and western Beringia during the Illinoian glaciation. Although
species may differ, every genus identified from the Utka Beds (?late Illinoian)
of the Kolyma Lowland in eastern Siberia (Appendix, Fauna 3) has been reported
from deposits of probable Illinoian age in Alaska (e.g. Ochotona, Dicrostonyz,

Lemmus, Microtus, Mammuthus, Equus, Rangifer, Alces, and Bison) (Table 1).

So far, no vertebrate faunas of definite Illinoian age have been recorded
in Canada, although horse, caribou and mammoth fossils as well as beaver-cut
wood have been collected from the basal-clay unit of the Old Crow Basin,
which may be of that age. However, mammals of Illinoian age are better known
in Alaska, and they serve to outline major trends occurring then. The great
proliferation of muskoxen during this phase should be noted. Staudinger's
muskox (Praeovtbos) and Ovtbos, which evidently originated in Eurasia, and the
Symbos cavtfrons—Bodtherium sargentt group, unknown outside of North America,
suddenly appear in Alaska. Staudinger's muskox may be an index fossil of
Illinoian deposits in the Beringian refugium. The rather sparse evidence
available points to that conclusion. Praeovtbos has been reported from the
Olyor fauna of the Kolyma Lowland, from the Fairbanks area of Alaska, and
from deposits along the Old Crow and Porcupine rivers in the Yukon Territory,
but it did not reach the southern plains of North America. The Symbos
ecavitfrons—Boédtherium sargentt group and Ovibos probably stemmed from a similar
ancestral stock, although the former shows a few more primitive features and
may have evolved in broad alpine-valley environments, which perhaps allowed its
later dispersal into the spreading steppe-like grasslands and parklands of

81

North America during the late Pleistocene. Ovibos adapted to colder tundra

and Arctic-steppe conditions.

The dhole (Cuon) seems to have entered North America about Illinoian time
(specimens are known from Alaska and the Yukon) with the American lion
(Panthera leo atrox), moose (Alces sp.), saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica),
mountain sheep (Ovis sp.) and possibly the brown bear (Ursus sp.). Brown
bears had spread to eastern North America by Sangamon or early-Wisconsin time.
This massive entry of Eurasian mammals into North America is related to their
pre-adaptation to cool, dry conditions in northern Asia and the development of
broad Arctic-steppe grasslands on the Bering Isthmus, which prompted their

eastward dispersal to fresh range in another continent.

Four, or possibly five, vertebrate faunas in Canada seem to be of Sangamon
interglacial age. Although land-mammal faunas of this age are lacking in
Alaska so far, one appears to be present in the Old Crow Basin of the Yukon
Territory. It as a peculiar mixture:of cool steppe or tundra, species süuchras
arctic hare (Lepus areticus), arctic fox (Alopex lagopus), mammoth (Mammuthus
sp.), caribou (Rangifer tarandus); moist woodland species such as beaver
(Castor canadensis), giant beaver (Castorotdes ohioensis), muskrat (Ondatra
zitbethiceus), and red-backed vole (Clethrionomys cf. rutilus); and "warmer-
adapted" species such as spotted skunk (Spilogale sp.) and camel (Camelinae).
Muskrats, and presumably the moist habitats they occupy, were widespread at
this time, for specimens are also reported from deposits of possible Sangamon
age in the Kotzebue Sound area of Alaska as well as in Sangamon faunas from
Medicine Hat and the Great Plains of the United States (Hibbard 1970).

There is evidence of an influx of 'warmer-adapted" species to eastern
Berinpta from the south about: this. tame.. .At least, for a shert period, the
giant beaver (Castorotdes ohioensis), ground sloth (Megalonyx jeffersont),
camel (Camelops sp.), badger (Taxtdea taxus), spotted skunk (Spilogale sp.),
short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) and woodchuck (Marmota cf. monax) survived
there. The American mastodon (Mammut amertcanum) may have arrived slightly
earlier, during Illinoian time (Table 1). The American lion (Panthera leo
atrox) may have spread south during this interglacial.

The Sangamon rodent faunas of Old Crow River (Locality 44) and Medicine
Hatebroadly reflect (the differences that exist in, the present. interglacial
between rodent faunas of the southern Canadian prairies and the Alaska—Yukon

region.

Sangamon faunas of the Canadian prairies (Medicine Hat, Fort Qu'Appelle)
have the following species in common: wolf (Canis sp.), Columbian mammoth

82

(Mammuthus columbi), medium-sized horse (Equus seottt), western camel
(Camelops hesternus) and giant bison (Bison latifrons). Except for the wolf,
the Saskatoon fauna, which may be of Sangamon age, has all these mammals.
Bison, probably mammoth, and a moose-like deer are common to the Sangamon
faunas of Fort Qu'Appelle and Toronto. The giant beaver occurs in Sangamon
deposits of Toronto and the Old Crow Basin (Locality 44) without intervening
records. Perhaps it was able to disperse rather rapidly northwards into the
Yukon during the Sangamon through chains of lakes that evidently tend to
form along the southern margin of the Canadian Shield during interglacial

phases. There are no records of the giant beaver from Alaska.

Marine mammals have shifted their latitudinal ranges greatly during the
late Pleistocene. Remains of walrus (Odobenus rosmarus), sea cow
(Hydrodamalis sp.) and sea lion (Eumetopias sp.) have been reported from
raised beach deposits of Sangamon age in Alaska. Evidently walruses and sea
cows ranged as far south as San Francisco during the peak of the Wisconsin
glaciation, and returned northwards to the Bering Strait in postglacial time.
Sea cows were exterminated by man about 1768, and the fate of the Pacific-

walrus herds is by no means certain.

The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus pritmtgentus) is a valuable indicator of
Wisconsin-age deposits in southern Canada and the northern United States.
An early type of the woolly mammoth is known from ?late-Illinoian deposits in
eastern Siberia (Utka Beds), and the advanced type was well established there
by early-Wisconsin time (Iedoma Suite). An unknown type of mammoth
(Mammuthus sp.) occupied Alaska during the Illinoian glaciation. The woolly
mammoth was well established in Alaska and the Yukon Territory in Wisconsin
time. It first appeared on the Canadian prairies (Medicine Hat) during the
early Wisconsin, and had reached southern Ontario (Woodbridge) by the mid

Wisconsin.

The similarity of western and eastern Beringian mammal faunas during the
Wisconsin glaciation is remarkable. Unlike the situation in Illinoian time,
most species were shared. Of 22 mammalian species represented in the
Wisconsin deposits of eastern Siberia (Iedoma and Alioshka suites; Appendix,
Faunas 1 and 2), 21 are known from Wisconsin deposits of Alaska and the
Yukon Territory. The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) did not
migrate from Eurasia to North America. Among the Wisconsin genera of the
Alaska—Yukon region not reported from faunas of similar age in the Kolyma
Lowland of Siberia are: Sorex (shrew), Megalonyx (ground sloth), Castor
(beaver), Clethrionomys (red-backed vole), Frethizon (porcupine), Arctodus
(short-faced bear), Taxtdea (badger), Lynx (lynx), Mammut (American mastodon),

Camelops (camel), Bos (yak-like bovid), Symbos and Bodtherium (extinct muskox)

83

and Ovis (mountain sheep). As mentioned previously, a number of these seem to
have been survivors of a northern surge of animals from southern North America
that occurred before the peak of the Wisconsin glaciation.

The Wisconsin faunas of the Canadian prairies are characterized by the
woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primtgenius), Mexican wild ass (Equus (Asinus)
conversidens), western camel (Camelops hesternus), and bison (Bison sp.),
whereas the contemporaneous faunas of eastern Beringia are characterized by
the woolly mammoth, Yukon wild ass (Equus (Astnus) lambet), large-horned
bison (Bison crasstcornts), caribou (Rangifer tarandus), wolf (Canis lupus)
and the American lion (Panthera leo atrox). The basic similarity of the
Mexican, Yukon and living Asiatic wild asses has been pointed out previously,
and a detailed comparative study is required to find whether or not they are

conspecific (Harington and Clulow 1973).

Rapidly accumulating evidence from the unglaciated areas of the Yukon
Territory and Alaska shows that human populations were present in eastern
Beringia at least 30,000 to 25,000 years ago. Remains of a child from near
Taber in southern Alberta suggest that people occupied that part of the
prairies before the peak of the Wisconsin glaciation. Probably these early
North Americans came from eastern Eurasia, although as yet no adequately dated
archaeological sites of this general age have been described from eastern
Siberia (Chard 1974). Moreover, evidence, mainly in the form of such
characteristic stone tools as fluted and lanceolate spear-points, suggests a
broad northward movement, as the Wisconsin ice retreated, of Palaeo-Indian
hunters from southern North America to the Canadian Atlantic coast, Ontario,
the northern prairies, southern British Columbia, the Canadian Shield, the
Yukon, and Alaska. But it is still problematic whether fluted points
originated in southern or northern North America.

The Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania apparently contains the
earliest dated evidence of man in northeastern North America (Adovasio et al.
1977). It is a well-stratified archaeological site showing signs of human
occupation beginning at least 16,000 years ago. Perhaps from this region,
caribou-hunting Palaeo-Indians moved northeastwards to occupy the Debert site
in Nova Scotia about 10,600 years ago, and northwards to occupy the Parkhill
site in southern Ontario between about 10,500 and 9,700 years ago. Farther
west, in the United States and the southern Canadian prairies, where
Palaeo-Indian sites are more common, mammoths and bison were important prey.
Palaeo-Indian hunters killed and butchered bison at the Fletcher site in
southern Alberta during early postglacial time. At approximately the same
time (9,000 years ago), they occupied sites on the Fraser River in British
Columbia, where salmon fishing seems to have been their basis of subsistence.

84

These people gradually spread northwards into the southwestern Yukon
Territory, killing bison at the Canyon site approximately 7,000 years ago.
By about that time, they had also occupied the Acasta Lake and Grant Lake
sites in the Northwest Territories, where, as at Debert, caribou (this time
the barren-ground rather than the woodland subspecies) were probably their
basic prey. The ability of Palaeo-Indian hunters to adapt to survival on
various kinds of prey in vastly differing habitats is worth noting.

Many characteristic ice-age mammals died out between approximately 10,000
and 8,000 years ago. This can be readily observed, for Canadian postglacial
faunas such as those at Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Oxbow Dam, Medicine Hat
(Fauna 1) and Acasta Lake, include only living species. The latest reliable
radiocarbon date on a member of the extinct Quaternary megafauna in Canada
appears to be about 7,700 B.P. for a mammoth (probably Mammuthus primigentus)
from the Peace River region of Alberta. Many American mastodons died in
southern Ontario between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago. Once-numerous herds of
Yukon and Mexican wild asses died out completely. The most recent radiocarbon
date pertaining to the extinction of the Mexican wild asses in Canada is about
11,000 B.P. (Cochrane), although Churcher and Stalker (1970) suggest that, on
the basis of stratigraphy, the species may have survived until 8,000 years ago
near Pashley, Alberta. Radiocarbon dates on large-horned bison (Bison
erasstcornts) from Fairbanks and Old Crow indicate that they survived until
12,000 years ago in eastern Beringia. The western bison (B. bison
oecetdentalis) seems to have given way to the smaller horned plains bison
(B. b. bison) and wood bison (B. b. athabasceae) later in the postglacial.
Large specialized predators of the extinct Quaternary megafauna, such as the
American lion (Panthera leo atrox), the scimitar cat (Homothertum serum), the
sabretooth cat (Smilodon floridanus) and the short-faced bear (Arectodus stmus),
Similarly died out. It is widely known that mammals of other continents also

suffered late-Quaternary extinctions (Martin 1967).

Why did such conspicuous extinctions of seemingly well-adapted, abundant
mammals occur so late in the Quaternary? After all, many had survived earlier
severe glacial phases. Although the question is not yet resolved, it should.
be noted that the extinction of large ice-age mammals in North America
coincided with a rapid environmental warming and a rise in the number of
people highly skilled in big-game hunting. Perhaps both these factors
contributed to the extinctions.

On the basis of my experience in studying Quaternary palaeoenvironmental
conditions in eastern Beringia, I am inclined to consider rapid environmental
change as the most important cause of extinction in that region. ‘Widespread
peat deposits in the Yukon and Alaska, which originated about 11,000 years ago

85

according to many radiocarbon dates on their bottom layers, and a
simultaneous spreading of spruce forest at the expense of cool steppe-
grasslands, which evidently prevailed during the coldest phases of the
Wisconsin glaciation, must have increasingly restricted the range and number
of many of the large grazers, such as woolly mammoths, wild asses and large-
horned bison. The apparent scarcity of important early-postglacial mammoth,
horse, and bison archaeological kill-sites in eastern Beringia militates
against extermination by hunters, although the probable killing of these
animals by early man in the Old Crow Basin about 30,000 to 25,000 years ago
may have depleted prey locally. Another point not readily explained by the
human overkill hypothesis is that perhaps the most easily killed herd-animals,
the economically valuable muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus), survived in the Yukon
until about 2,800 years ago and in northern Alaska until about 1858
(Harington 1970a), despite the presence of human hunters since at least
mid-Wisconsin time.

Concerning the extinction of the large Quaternary mammals in southern
North America, it is worth emphasizing that although mammoth and bison
archaeological kill-sites are known, bison still survive, and relatively few
mammoths were killed at any of perhaps a dozen recorded sites (Wheat 1971).
Caribou seem to have been heavily hunted by Palaeo-Indians in eastern North
America, yet they survived.

Horses — notably Equus (Asinus) lambet in the northwest, and
E. (A.) conversidens and £. seottt in the south — were so numerous and
widespread in North America during the late Wisconsin that the lack of horse
archaeological kill-sites suggests a cause of extinction other than man.
Further, despite abundant finds of mastodon remains in late-Wisconsin deposits,
sites where they have been killed by man are virtually unknown (MacDonald 1971).
On the basis of existing evidence, I think it is an oversimplification to
select human overkill as the main reason for late-Quaternary megafaunal
extinctions in North America.

Although many scientists have studied this problem and much radiocarbon
evidence 1s available on the times of extinctions of various species, there
is still no generally accepted explanation. Perhaps a useful approach to the
problem is to study it region by region. Detailed research on sensitive
palaeoenvironmental indicators — such as insects, plant macrofossils, pollen
and mollusc shells in the extremely well preserved sediments of unglaciated
Alaska and the Yukon Territory — accompanied by finer geochronological
control and more extensive archaeological and vertebrate palaeontological

evidence, may help to solve the problem in eastern Beringia.

86

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99

APPENDIX — QUATERNARY VERTEBRATE FAUNAS OF NORTHEASTERN SIBERIA

Several of the most important Quaternary vertebrate faunas from
northeastern Siberia are listed below so that they may be readily compared
with those of Canada and Alaska. In addition to the lists of species,
associated information, where available, is provided for each of these

western Beringian faunas.

FAUNAS

1. Kolyma Lowland (Alioshka Suite — lower Kolyma River)

Mammals - Lepus cf. tanatticus (hare), Mammuthus primigenius (woolly
mammoth), Equus caballus (very small horse), Rangifer tarandus
(caribou), Bison priseus ssp. (very small bison), Satga tatartea

(saiga antelope).
Suggested Age - Late Pleistocene (late Wisconsin).

Remarks - Fossils are from sands which form a large, low depositional
plain on the lower Kolyma River. The mammals represented,
particularly the saiga antelope, suggest dry, level grasslands
with little snow cover in winter.

References - Sher 197la, 1971b.

2. Kolyma Lowland (Iedoma Suite — right bank of the Kolyma River between the
mouths of the Omolon and Anyui rivers)

Mammals - Ochotona sp. (pika), Lepus cf. tanatiticus (hare),
Spermophilus cf. parryt (arctic ground squirrel), Dicrostonyx
torquatus (collared lemming), Lemmus obensis (=?Lemmus stbiriceus)
(Ob or ?brown lemming), Microtus (Stenocranius) sp. (vole),
Canis lupus (wolf), Alopex lagopus (arctic fox), Vulpes vulpes
(red fox), Ursus aretos (brown bear), Gulo gulo (wolverine),
Panthera leo spelaea (cave lion), Mammuthus primigenius (late
type of woolly mammoth), Equus caballus (small type of caballine
horse), Coelodonta antiquitatis (woolly rhinoceros), Cervus
elaphus (red deer), Alces alces (moose), Rangifer tarandus
(caribou), Bison priscus longtecornis (= Bison crasstcornis)
(large-horned bison), Bison sp. (small bison with short
horncores), Ovtbos moschatus (tundra muskox).

Suggested Age - Late Pleistocene (early Wisconsin).

100

Remarks - This suite of sediments consists of a thick succession of
silty, fine sands and loams with a high ice content. It forms
the upper part of the section in the high interfluves of the
Kolyma Lowland. Analyses of fossil spores and pollen in these
deposits indicates a change from dry, cold steppe-tundra to
forest-tundra characterized by birch and larch. Most of the

mammals represented are indicative of cool, steppe grasslands.

References - Sher 197ila, 1971b:

Kolyma Lowland (Utka Beds — right bank of the Maly Anyui River)

Mammals - Ochotona sp. (pika), Dterostonyx cf. torquatus (collared
lemming), Lemmus obensis (=?Lemmus stbtricus) (Ob or ?brown
lemming), Microtus cf. oeconomus (tundra vole), Mammuthus
primtgentus (early type of woolly mammoth), Equus caballus
(large caballine horse), Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Alces sp.
(large moose), Bison sp. (bison).

Suggested Age - Middle Pleistocene (Riss II = late Illinoian).

Remarks - Fossils are from sands overlying bedrock and underlying
silty fine sands containing a late Upper Palaeolithic mammal
fauna. In some localities peat separates the Utka Beds from
more recent deposits. The Utka Beds are characterized by fossil
spores and pollen of tundra and forest-tundra. Palaeobotanical
analysis of a peat deposit in these sediments indicates the
former presence of birch-larch forest in the region. The

mammals represented are indicative of a cool, steppe grassland.

References ©- Sher 197ila, 1971b.

Kolyma Lowland (Olyor Suite — right bank of Chukochiya River; see
Sher 197lb;S#F5ipure 1)

Bushes = Dalézasp. (blackfish) ;
Birds - Gavta immer (Common Loon).

Mammals - Sorex cf. daphaenodon (shrew), Ochotona sp. (pika),
Lepus sp. (hare), Spermophilus sp. (ground squirrel),
Trogonthertum sp. (Eurasian giant beaver), Dicrostonyx spp.
(two species of collared lemming), Lemmus cf. obensis
(=?Lemmus cf. stbtrteus) (Ob or ?brown lemming), Clethrtonomys
sp. (red-backed vole), Mtcrotus cf. (Stenocrantus) gregalis
(singing vole), Microtus sp. or Allophatomys sp. (vole),

Cants sp. (?wolf), Panthera cf. leo spelaea (cave lion),

Ursus sp. (bear), Mammuthus sp. (mammoth), Equus (Plesippus)
verae (large horse), Cervidae (deer), Alces latifrons (giant
moose), Rangifer sp. (caribou), Bison sp. (bison), Soergelia sp.

(Soergel's muskox), Praeovibos beringtensts (Bering muskox).

Suggested Age - Remarkable faunal similarities between the mammals
of the Olyor Suite and those from Tiraspol, Stissenborn and
Mosbach indicate an early middle Pleistocene age (Mindel =
?Kansan) for the fauna.

Remarks - The Olyor Suite consists of a sequence of horizontal beds
of fine loamy sands separated by thin layers of alluvial and
autochthonous peat. At their irregular upper surface, the fine
sands of the suite are overlain by late Pleistocene fine loamy
sands with ice wedges suggestive of a cool periglacial
environment. Bones from the Olyor Suite are so dark from deep
staining by minerals in the groundwater that they can be
recognized even when they have been washed out of the source
beds. Analysis of spores, pollen and plant macrofossils from
the Olyor sediments indicate that the environment was much like
the present in that region. Of the 60 plant species identified
from macrofossils, only a few species of Potamogeton and
Ceratophyllum are unknown in the present Arctic flora in the
lowland. The only tree remains are of larch, willow and birch.
Fossil spore and pollen spectra indicate the prevalence of cool,
tundra-like grasslands with steppe elements were predominant
when this fauna lived. Similar conclusions about the
environment are suggested by the vertebrate fauna. Blackfish
(Dallia pectoralis) occupy heavily-vegetated ponds, streams and
lakes. They are most common in tundra, but also occur in
forested areas. Common Loons indicate the presence of
freshwater lakes. Patches of moist woodland are suggested by
Eurasian giant beaver. The red-backed vole remains suggest the
presence of shrub habitat. Most of the remaining species are
indicative of cool, tundra-like grasslands.

References ="Sher 197la, 1971b; Giterman 1973:

5. Kolyma Lowland (Begunov Suite — right bank of the Kolyma River between

the mouths of the Omolon and Berezovka rivers)

Mammals - Mtmomys sp. (vole), Equus (Plesippus) sp. (large horse),

Praeovtbos cf. priseus (Staudinger's muskox).

Suggested Age - Probably early Pleistocene (=?Nebraskan).

102

Remarks - Fossils are from a basal unit that grades from pebbles at
the bottom to sands in the upper part of the deposit. Analyses
of fossil pollen and plant macrofossils from the sediments
suggest a gradual development of larch-spruce-birch forests in
the repion-. Sht 1s) a Cooler flora than Pirocene floras of the
Omoloi type. The presence of vole, large horse and Staudinger's
muskox fossils may indicate the former existence of a cool
parkland (e.g. grassy tracts among clumps of coniferous and
birch forest).

References Shen 1972, 19715"

Aldan River (tributary of the Lena River, below its juncture with the

Amga River; see Vangengeim 1961, Figure 1)

Mammals - Ochotona hyperborea (pika), Lepus timidus (varying hare),
Spermophilus parryt (arctic ground squirrel), Castor fiber
(beaver), Dtcrostonyx torquatus (collared lemming), Lemmus
obensis (= ?Lemmus stbirteus) (Ob or ?brown lemming),
Clethrtonomys nutilus (red-backed vole), Microtus oeconomus
(tundra vole), Microtus hyperboreus (northern vole), Microtus

(Stenoerantus) gregalts (singing vole).

Suggested Age - Late Pleistocene (Illinoian). The fauna most likely
corresponds to the period of maximal (Riss) glaciation.

Remarks - Fossils are from a number of exposures of deposits of the
second, terzace above, thesfloodplain ofthe Aldan River. ~The
sedimentary sequence in the second terrace progresses upward
from gravels and sands (about 10 to 30 metres (32.8 to 98.4 ft)
above stream level) through alluvial sandy clay (about 30 to
50 metres (98.4 to 164.0 ft) above stream level) and soliflucted
sandy clay (about 50 to 100 metres (164.0 to 328.1 ft) above
stream level). Generally, the faunal remains indicate a cool
steppe grassland environment. The beaver fossil suggests that
patches of moist woodland were present, and the red-backed vole
remains may indicate that shrubby areas once existed there.
Permafrost features in the sediments indicate the prevalence of
periglacial conditions. Furthermore, many of the species
represented by fossils are far south of their present arctic

range.

Reference - Vangengeim 1961.

103

le

8.

104

Bolshoi Lyakhov Island, New Siberian Islands (southern tip)

Fishes - Esox lucius (northern pike).

Mammals - Lepus timidus (varying hare), Dicrostonyx torquatus
(collared lemming), Lemmus obensis (=?Lemmus stbiricus) (Ob or
?brown lemming), Canis lupus (wolf), Alopex lagopus (arctic fox),
Panthera leo spelaea (cave lion), Mammuthus primigenius (woolly
mammoth), Equus ceaballus (horse), Coelodonta antiquitatis (woolly
rhinoceros), Alces alces (moose), Rangifer tarandus (caribou),
Bison priscus longicornis (= Bison crassicornis) (large-horned
bison), Bison prisceus aff. deminutus (=?Bison bison occidentalis)
(small-horned bison), Bison priseus ssp. (possibly another
subspecies of bison), Ovibos moschatus (tundra muskox).

Suggested Age - Late Pleistocene (?Illinoïan to Wisconsin).

Remarks - The bones were not found in situ. According to
N.N. Romanowski the fossils are derived from deposits with
secondary-veined masses of ice occurring on lagoonal sediments.
The ice veins suggest a periglacial environment. The mammals
represented strongly indicate the former presence of an arctic
steppe environment at the site during the late Pleistocene.
Although the bones are somewhat eroded on spits and beaches
where they were found, evidently they were not transported far.
The presence of pike in the fauna is particularly good evidence
that Bolshoi Lyakhov Island was a part of the Siberian mainland
during glacial maxima of the late Pleistocene.

Reference - Vangengeim 1961.

Proliv Dmitriya Lapteva (south shore, east of Mys Svyatoy Nos; see
Vereshchagin 1974, Map 1)

Mammals - Mammuthus primigenius (woolly mammoth), Equus sp. (horse),
Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Bison sp. (small bison), Ovibos

moschatus (tundra muskox).
Suggested Age - Late Pleistocene (?Wisconsin).

Remarks - Fossils are from sediment approximately 20 metres (65.6 ft)
below the surface in silty bluffs about 40 metres (131.2 ft)
thick that contain ice veins. Probably the upper 5 to 8 metres
(16.4 to 26.3 ft) of loess-like loam with remains of alder,
birch and willow is of postglacial age. The mammals represented

are indicative of an arctic steppe or tundra-like environment.

Reference - Vereshchagin 1974.

9. Berelekh River (western tributary of the Indigirka River at 71°N)

Birds - Lagopus sp. (ptarmigan).

Mammals - Homo sp. (indirect evidence from bone and stone artifacts
found 60 to 80 metres (196.9 to 262.5 ft) downstream from the
deposit), Lepus sp. (hare), Canis lupus (wolf), Gulo gulo
(wolverine), Panthera leo spelaea (cave lion), Mammuthus
primtgentus (woolly mammoth), Equus sp. (horse), Coelodonta
antiquttatts (woolly rhinoceros), Rangifer tarandus (caribou),

Bison sp. (bison).

Suggested Age - Late Pleistocene (late Wisconsin). A mammoth tusk
yielded a radiocarbon date of 12,240 + 160 B.P. Human hunters
may have occupied the area approximately 10,000 years ago
(Vereshchagin 1974, p. 10), or could have been contemporaneous
with the remainder of the vertebrate fauna.

Remarks - At this locality the Berelekh River cuts through a hill
16 m (52.5 ft) high exposing an upper unit of light grey loess
approximately 5 metres (16.4 ft) thick. This loess of late
Wisconsin age is underlain by approximately 11 metres (36.1 ft)
of organic alluvial silt of mid-Wisconsin interstadial age.
The bones are derived from the upper loess unit. The vertebrate
fauna and the grey loess from which it was derived suggest a

cool loess steppe environment.

Reference -)Vereshchagin 1974.

105

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