Pleistocene mammals of the Edmonton area, Alberta. Part I. The carnivores

Abstract

Late Pleistocene fossils have been recovered sporadically in the Edmonton area, in central Alberta, for many years but there has been little work in determining their age. Fossils from quarries in North Saskatchewan River terraces and buried valley gravels are recognized as Late Pleistocene (mid-Wisconsinan) and early Holocene taxa, and numerous 14C dates on mammalian remains now support the assessment. The mammalian fauna consists of at least 16 taxa, including mostly grazing herbivores, but also three carnivores: Canis cf. Canis lupus (gray wolf), Arctodus simus (giant short-faced bear), and Panthera leo atrox (Pleistocene lion). The carnivores are first records for the region, and Arctodus is a first record for Alberta.

Helmeted Muskox (Bootherium bombifrons) from Near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta: Dating Evidence for Redeposition in Late Pleistocene Alluvium

“…The new date indicates that the Fort Saskatchewan specimen is Middle Wisconsinan (pre-Last Glacial Maximum) rather than latest Pleistocene in age, corresponding to other dates on vertebrate fossils from pre-Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) Empress Foundation gravels and sands in the Edmonton area (Burns and Young, 1994). It also supports the contention of the late Dr. L.A. Bayrock (personal communication to L.V.…”

“…Detailed maps of preglacial channels show that the pre-Late Glacial Maximum and post-Late Glacial Maximum drainage patterns were different, with earlier rivers integrated into a dendritic pattern trending northeastward whereas post-Late Glacial Maximum rivers trend northeastward to eastward but often "jump" laterally (southeastward) as a result of damming along former ice-front positions (Stalker, 1961;Farvolden, 1963). The last pre-Late Glacial Maximum fluvial cycle gave rise to widespread valley fills assigned to the Empress Formation (Saskatchewan Gravels and Sands), dating before about 20 14 C ka (Rutherford, 1937;Stalker, 1968a;Burns and Young, 1994;Rutter et al, 1998). Widespread terminal Pleistocene valley fills are assigned to the Bighill Creek Formation and equivalents, dated between about 12 000 and 10 000 14 C yrs BP (Churcher, 1968(Churcher, , 1972(Churcher, , 1975Stalker, 1968b;Jackson et al, 1982;Wilson, 1983;Wilson and Churcher, 1984;Hills and Harington, 2003).…”

“…The pits sampled by Fuller and Bayrock (1965) likely included superimposed or inset gravel deposits of more than one age (Harington, 1978), or the gravels are postglacial but elements of the fauna have been redeposited. Burns and Young (1994) found that in the Consolidated Concrete Pit, in the Beverly Valley at Edmonton, 3-5 m of gravels and sands without shield stones (Empress Formation) were unconformably overlain by another 3 m of gravels and sands "reworked during incision of the postglacial North Saskatchewan". Most of the nearly 800 bones from that pit were from the lower gravel, but older bones from the early gravels were also found in the younger deposits.…”

The Muirkirk Mammoth: A Late Pleistocene woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) skeleton from southern Ontario, Canada

“…The migration to northwestern North America (Eastern Beringia) may have occurred about 200,000e 100,000 years ago (Lister and Bahn, 2007, p. 35;Debruyne et al, 2008, p. 35). Radiocarbon-dated woolly mammoth specimens from mainland Alaska, Yukon and Northwest Territories show that they ranged in age from >40,000 to about 14,000 BP (Harington, 2003;Radiocarbon Date (Burns and Young, 1994;Burns, 1996) suggesting that they with brown bears (Ursus arctos) (Matheus et al, 2004) were able to penetrate the heartland of North America via an ice-free corridor during the mid-Wisconsinan. It may have been during that relatively warm phase of the last glaciation that humans, pre-adapted to hunting and butchering woolly mammoths in Eastern Beringia (Morlan, 2003;Harington and Cinq-Mars, 2008), moved south too, enabling them to hunt and butcher Columbian mammoths (Mammuthus columbi) at two sites on the Great Plains (Nebraska and Kansas) during the LGM about 19,000 to 18,000 BP (Holen, 2006).…”

Late Pleistocene Lemmings (Lemmus Trimucronatus and Dicrostonyx Groenlandicus; Muridae: Rodentia) From Alberta, Canada

“…In recent years, the late Pleistocene vertebrate fauna, geomorphology, and geochronology of Alberta, Canada, have become better understood with the publication of reports of fossil cave faunas from the Rocky Mountains (e.g., Burns 1991) and faunal accumulations (loosely termed faunas) derived from gravel quarry operations in several regions of the province (Burns 1996a(Burns , 1996bBurns and Young 1994;Young et al 1994). The earlier recoveries of Arctic taxa, such as Lemmus and Dicrostonyx, in the Alberta cave faunas stimulated interest partly because they began to fill the gaps in the faunal distribution record between the ice-free portions of Alaska and Yukon Territory (Eastern Beringia) and the unglaciated portions of the conterminous United States.…”