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Paleoecological implications of the first prehistoric record of water vole (Microtus richardsoni) from Washington state, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2019

R. Lee Lyman Open the ORCID record for R. Lee Lyman [Opens in a new window]
R. Lee Lyman*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, 112 Swallow Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
*
*Corresponding author at e-mail address: [email protected] (R. L. Lyman).
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Abstract

Remains of the North American water vole (Microtus richardsoni) have previously been recovered from late Pleistocene and Holocene deposits in southwestern Alberta, western Montana, and north-central Wyoming. All are within the historically documented modern range of the metapopulation occupying the Rocky Mountains; no ancient remains of this large microtine have previously been reported from the metapopulation occupying the Cascade Range. Four lower first molar specimens from the late Holocene Stemilt Creek Village archaeological site in central Washington here identified as water vole are from the eastern slope of the Cascade Range and are extralimital to the metapopulation found in those mountains. There is no taphonomic evidence indicating long-distance transport of the teeth, and modern trapping records suggest the local absence of water voles from the site area today is not a function of sampling error. The precise age of the Stemilt Creek Village water voles is obscure but climate change producing well-documented late Holocene advances of nearby alpine glaciers could have created habitat conditions conducive to the apparent modest shift in the range of the species represented by the remains.

Keywords

Late HoloceneMicrotus richardsoniNorth American water voleCentral Washington statePaleoecology
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 92 , Issue 2 , September 2019 , pp. 381 - 387
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2019 

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