Multiple approaches to formation processes: The Pine Spring Site, southwest Wyoming

Abstract

Excavations in 1964 at the Pine Spring site in southwest Wyoming concluded that the site contains three cultural occupation levels; the earliest allegedly dates to the terminal Pleistocene and is associated with megafauna. However, excavations in 1998 and 2000, and analysis of the stratigraphy, AMS dates, micromorphology, and artifact carbonate isotopes, along with debitage refitting, density, orientation, inclination, burning, and trample damage, could not replicate the 1964 findings. A hiatus in deposition accounts for the highest density of artifacts, and the three original occupations are palimpsests. There is no unequivocal association between evidence of human activity and megafaunal remains.

Synchronous extinction of North America's Pleistocene mammals

“…However, with a few exceptions (e.g., Mammuthus, Cervalces, Castoroides, and Megalonyx), such dates are few and far between. The AMS dates on unpurified bone collagen, however, are more common (38,39) and generally considered reliable for building the extinction chronology. This study includes AMS dates on the bone collagen of extinct North American mammals.…”

Kabadul Kula and the Antiquity of Torres Strait Rock Art

“…The absence of a relative concentration peak in cultural (e.g. stone artefacts and ochre fragments) and non-cultural (granitic rock fragments, including roof fall and in-washed gravels) materials in XU7 corresponding to a lag deposit (Figures 7 and 9) suggests strongly that the chronological hiatus represents a disconformity associated with minimal net sediment accumulation and cultural discard at the site and not selective removal of sediments by erosion (see Kelly et al 2006;O'Connor et al 1999).…”