From Whence they Came: the Paleontology of Southern Plains Bison
| Autor: | Walter W. Dalquest, Don G. Wyckoff |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1997 |
| Předmět: |
010506 paleontology
060102 archaeology biology Fauna Small sample 06 humanities and the arts Age and sex biology.organism_classification 01 natural sciences Archaeology Plains bison law.invention Geography law American bison Anthropology visual_art 0601 history and archaeology Radiocarbon dating Nomenclature visual_art.artwork 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Chronology |
| Zdroj: | Plains Anthropologist. 42:5-32 |
| ISSN: | 2052-546X 0032-0447 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/2052546.1997.11931835 |
| Popis: | Long renowned for their clues to the presence and predatory abilities of North America's earliest humans, Southern Plains sites with bison remains have provided vertebrate paleontologists with food for thought for nearly a century. Bison skulls from Texas, New Mexico, and Kansas figured prominently in early taxonomic schemes, ideas on bison evolution, and the chronology of geological deposits before radiocarbon dating. Now, in addition to innumerable finds of isolated cranial parts, bison remains are reported for over 30 nonarchaeological sites from southwestern Kansas to southern Texas. A radiocarbon-dated chronology is slowly developing for these paleontological finds, and, on this basis, bison remains appear to be non existent in deposits older than 50,000 years BP. Moreover, most localities older than 20,000 years BP yield more remains ofherbivores other than bison. Although several competing models of North American bison evolution are currently in vogue, Southern Plains finds demonstrate that serious problems hinder full acceptance of any model. These problems include small sample sizes, poor understanding of age and sex differences within nominal species, inadequate dating of most faunal localities, and (most of all) identification errors resulting from misinterpretation of nomenclature. As a result, many identifications of bison species published in the last 20 years are suspect. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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