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Packrat Midden Evidence of Late Quaternary Vegetation Change in the White Mountains, California-Nevada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Steven A. Jennings  and
Deborah L. Elliott-Fisk
Steven A. Jennings*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of California, Davis, California 95616
Deborah L. Elliott-Fisk
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of California, Davis, California 95616
*
1Present address : Department of Geography, Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas 77843.
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Abstract

Packrat (Neotoma spp.) middens from the White Mountains indicate climatic and plant community conditions for the last 19,000 yr. During full-glacial times (ca. 19,000 yr B.P.) and at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary juniper woodlands were 600 m lower in elevation than at present. Midden assemblages and stable-isotope data suggest lower temperatures and increased precipitation relative to the present into the early Holocene. Two early Holocene middens (ca. 8000 yr B.P.) from lower elevations of the White Mountains contain fragments of pinyon pine and indicate that both pinyon and juniper grew at a site that today supports only a pinyon woodland. Two middle Holocene middens (ca. 5000 yr B.P.) indicate that there was an upward migration of pinyon-juniper woodlands along a high-elevation ecotone, but little change in the middle of the pinyon-juniper woodland. Middens from the late Holocene indicate that present-day plant communities were in place by ca. 2000 yr B.P. or before.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , March 1993 , pp. 214 - 221
Copyright
University of Washington

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