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Late Pleistocene Extinction and Radiocarbon Dating*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jim J. Hester
Jim J. Hester*
Affiliation:
Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, N.M.
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Abstract

All radiocarbon dates from North America, associated with extinct Late Pleistocene mammals, those from levels stratigraphically later than levels with extinct forms, and dates associated with recent fauna are tabulated alphabetically by site. Dates associated with extinct fauna are cross-referenced in an alphabetical listing of species. Dates considered invalid are tabulated and are not utilized in formulating conclusions. Most herding animals, such as the Columbian mammoth, horse, camel, and bison, as well as the dire wolf, rapidly became extinct about 8000 years ago. The dates suggest a southward withdrawal from the Great Plains by the mammoth and a partial contemporaneity of Clovis elephant hunters in southern Arizona with Folsom bison hunters on the Plains. Dates for the extinction of the Imperial mammoth are probably too early. The mastodon may have survived in isolated areas after the extinction of other forms. The super bison may have become extinct earlier than 8000 years ago and Bison bison seems to have been present in some areas before the extinction of B. antiquus. Radiocarbon dates do not support the supposed late survival of the ground sloth. Extinction apparently occurred earlier in the Great Basin and Coahuila than in intervening areas.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , July 1960 , pp. 58 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1960

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Footnotes

*

Presented at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Salt Lake City, April 30, 1959.

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