Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T22:20:40.162Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Implications of Radiocarbon Dates from Potter Creek Cave, Shasta County, California, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Robert S Feranec*
Affiliation:
New York State Museum, 3140 Cultural Education Center, Albany, NY 12230, USA. Email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

New dates obtained from the bone collagen of mammals from the deposits in Potter Creek Cave, Shasta County, California, USA, show that these fossils were emplaced over the last 30,000 yr. The dates support the assignment of the fauna in the cave to the late Pleistocene and are contemporaneous to the dates obtained from the fauna of Samwel Cave located 5 km to the north. These new dates do not support previous radiocarbon dates suggesting a Holocene extinction of the extinct bovid Euceratherium collinum, and demonstrate that this and other megafauna were not present in the vicinity after the terminal Pleistocene.

Type
Archaeology
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

REFERENCES

Barnosky, AD, Koch, PL, Feranec, RS, Wing, SL, Shabel, AB. 2004. Assessing the causes of Late Pleistocene extinctions on the continents. Science 306(5693):70–5.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, Higham, T, Bowles, A, Hedges, R. 2004. Improvements to the pretreatment of bone at Oxford. Radiocarbon 46(1):155–63.Google Scholar
Brown, TA, Nelson, DE, Vogel, JS, Southon, JR. 1988. Improved collagen extraction by modified Longin method. Radiocarbon 30(2):171–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feranec, RS, Hadly, EA, Blois, JL, Barnosky, AD, Paytan, A. 2007. Radiocarbon dates from the Pleistocene fossil deposits of Samwel Cave, Shasta County, California, USA. Radiocarbon 49(1):117–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furlong, EL. 1904. An account of the preliminary excavations in a recently explored Quaternary cave in Shasta County, California. Science 20(497):53–5.Google Scholar
Hedges, REM, Law, IA. 1989. The radiocarbon dating of bone. Applied Geochemistry 4(3):249–53.Google Scholar
Hedges, REM, van Klinken, GJ. 1992. A review of current approaches in the pretreatment of bone for radiocarbon dating by AMS. Radiocarbon 34(3):279–91.Google Scholar
Hutchison, JH. 1967. A Pleistocene vampire bat (Desmodus stocki) from Potter Creek Cave, Shasta County, California. PaleoBios 3:16.Google Scholar
Law, IA, Hedges, REM. 1989. A semi-automated bone pretreatment system and the pretreatment of older and contaminated samples. Radiocarbon 31(3):247–53.Google Scholar
Payen, LA, Taylor, RE. 1976. Man and Pleistocene fauna at Potter Creek Cave, California. Journal of California Anthropology 3(1):51–8.Google Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Baillie, MGL, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Beck, JW, Bertrand, CJH, Blackwell, PG, Buck, CE, Burr, GS, Cutler, KB, Damon, PE, Edwards, RL, Fairbanks, RG, Friedrich, M, Guilderson, TP, Hogg, AG, Hughen, KA, Kromer, B, McCormac, G, Manning, S, Bronk Ramsey, C, Reimer, RW, Remmele, S, Southon, JR, Stuiver, M, Talamo, S, Taylor, FW, van der Plicht, J, Weyhenmeyer, CE. 2004. IntCal04 terrestrial radiocarbon age calibration, 0–26 cal kyr BP. Radiocarbon 46(3):1029–58.Google Scholar
Sinclair, WJ. 1903. A preliminary account of the exploration of the Potter Creek Cave, Shasta County, California. Science 17(435):708–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, WJ. 1905. New mammalia from the Quaternary caves of California. University of California Publications in Geology 4:145–61.Google Scholar
Sinclair, WJ. 1907. The exploration of the Potter Creek Cave. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 2:127.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ, Reimer, RW. 2005. CALIB 5.0 [WWW program and documentation]. URL: http://calib.qub.ac.uk/calib/.Google Scholar
Taylor, RE. 1975. UCR radiocarbon dates II. Radiocarbon 17(3):396406.Google Scholar