Huntington Dam (Pleistocene of the United States)

Also known as Huntington Canyon

Where: Sanpete County, Utah (39.6° N, 111.3° W: paleocoordinates 39.6° N, 111.2° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Late/Upper Pleistocene (0.1 - 0.0 Ma)

• C14 dates of 11,420 +/- 110 BP "on a fir needle from stomach contents" of the mammoth and 11,220 +/- 110 BP on mammoth bone, plus "bracketing dates of 9,580 +/- 90 BP and 9,440 +/- 60 BP on spruce wood from stratigraphically below and above the mammoth bones" that indicate reburial

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: lacustrine; claystone

• "glaciolacustrine clay"

Size class: macrofossils

• "nearly complete" mammoth skeleton plus "a cranial fragment" of a bear that apparently were reburied "nearly 2,000 years later" after deglaciation, based on C14 dates

•mammoth bones have apparent ursid gnawing marks, and there is a "series of bifacially-worked lithic tools" that may or may not be of the same age as the fossils

Collected in 1988

• specimens in the collection of the Utah State Historical Society

Primary reference: D. D. Gillette and D. B. Madsen. 1992. The short-faced bear Arctodus simus from the late Quaternary in the Wasatch Mountains of central Utah. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 12(1):107-112 [J. Alroy/J. Alroy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: biostratigraphic analysis

PaleoDB collection 74478: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 06.08.2007

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Mammalia
 Carnivora - Ursidae
Arctodus simus Cope 1879 giant short-faced bear
 Proboscidea - Elephantidae
Mammuthus columbi Falconer 1857 Columbian mammoth