Daniel A. Guthrie

Paleoindian Seafaring, Maritime Technologies, and Coastal Foraging on California’s Channel Islands

Archaeological sites reveal a variety of tools used to hunt marine birds, mammals, and fish 12,000 years ago. Three archaeological sites on California’s Channel Islands show that Paleoindians relied heavily on marine resources. The Paleocoastal sites, dated between ~12,200 and 11,200 years ago, contain numerous stemmed projectile points and crescents associated with a variety of marine and aquatic faunal remains. At site CA-SRI-512 on Santa Rosa Island, Paleocoastal peoples used such tools to capture geese, cormorants, and other birds, along with marine mammals and finfish. At Cardwell Bluffs on San Miguel Island, Paleocoastal peoples collected local chert cobbles, worked them into bifaces and projectile points, and discarded thousands of marine shells. With bifacial technologies similar to those seen in Western Pluvial Lakes Tradition assemblages of western North America, the sites provide evidence for seafaring and island colonization by Paleoindians with a diversified maritime economy.

An archaeological and paleontological chronology for Daisy Cave (CA-SMI-261), San Miguel Island, California.

We provide detailed contextual information on 25 14 C dates for unusually well-preserved archaeological and paleontological remains from Daisy Cave. Paleontological materials, including faunal and floral remains, have been recovered from deposits spanning roughly the past 16,000 yr, while archaeological materials date back to ca. 10,500 BP. Multidisciplinary investigations at the site provide a detailed record of environmental and cultural changes on San Miguel Island during this time period. This record includes evidence for the local or regional extinction of a number of animal species, as well as some of the earliest evidence for the human use of boats and other maritime activities in the Americas. Data from Daisy Cave contribute to a growing body of evidence that Paleoindians had adapted to a wide variety of New World environments prior to 10,000 PB. Analysis of shell-charcoal pairs, along with isotopic analysis of associated marine shells, supports the general validity of marine shell dating, but also provides evidence for temporal fluctuations in the reservoir effect within the Santa Barbara Channel region.

Pleistocene to historic shifts in bald eagle diets on the Channel Islands, California

Studies of current interactions among species, their prey, and environmental factors are essential for mitigating immediate threats to population viability, but the true range of behavioral and ecological flexibility can be determined only through research on deeper timescales. Ecological data spanning centuries to millennia provide important contextual information for long-term management strategies, especially for species that now are living in relict populations. Here we use a variety of methods to reconstruct bald eagle diets and local abundance of their potential prey on the Channel Islands from the late Pleistocene to the time when the last breeding pairs disappeared from the islands in the mid-20th century. Faunal and isotopic analysis of bald eagles shows that seabirds were important prey for immature/adult eagles for millennia before the eagles’ local extirpation. In historic times (A.D. 1850–1950), however, isotopic and faunal data show that breeding bald eagles provisioned their chicks with introduced ungulates (e.g., sheep), which were locally present in high densities. Today, bald eagles are the focus of an extensive conservation program designed to restore a stable breeding population to the Channel Islands, but native and nonnative prey sources that were important for bald eagles in the past are either diminished (e.g., seabirds) or have been eradicated (e.g., introduced ungulates). In the absence of sufficient resources, a growing bald eagle population on the Channel Islands could expand its prey base to include carrion from local pinniped colonies, exert predation pressure on a recovering seabird population, and possibly prey on endangered island foxes.

Primitive Man's Relationship to Nature

natural. This attitude is due, in part, to a belief that primitive man lived in harmony with nature, a harmony that has been lost by modern society. Both Christianity (White, 1967) and Christianity coupled with technology (Roszak, 1969) have been blamed for this loss of harmony with nature. Yi-Fu Tuan (1970) and Richard Wright (1970) have disputed this belief by showing that Christians are not alone in their

The Tarsus of Early Eocene Artiodactyls

The tarsi of two genera of early Eocene artiodactyls, Bunophorus and Diacodexis, are described. Both possess only four toes, with digits II and V reduced to the status of dew claws. It is suggested that in some lineages of artiodactyls the evolutionary tendency to reduce digits II and V was reversed and that these toes were enlarged, resulting in forms with four fully functional toes by the Oligocene.

The carotid circulation in Aplodontia.

The carotid circulation of Aplondontia rufa is described. the ancestral pattern in the Rodentia for the origin of the internal maxillary artery is as a terminal branch of the external carotid artery. This pattern is found in Aplodontia. Other origins of the internal maxillary artery commonly found within the Rodentia ( from either the circle of Willis, the stapedial artery, or the proximal part of the external carotid artery) are derived from this ancestral pattern. It is suggested that the ancestral pattern proved disadvantageous when rodents developed a high degree of anteroposterior movement of the lower jaw. Changes in the derivative patterns for the origin of the internal maxillary artery were accomplished by retention of other arterial pathways normally present in embryonic rodents as remnants of the aortic arch system.

A New Species of Dichobunid Artiodactyl from the Early Eocene of Wyoming

A new species of artiodactyl, Bunophorus sinclairi , from the early Eocene Wind River Formation of Wyoming is described, and a revision is made in the generic description of Bunophorus . This species differs from previously described early Eocene artiodactyls in the possession of a second cusp on P4. The possibility that a new genus should be erected for this species is considered and rejected.

Avian material from Rancho del Oro, a Pleistocene locality in San Diego County, California

Abstract Late Pleistocene avifaunal material from a construction site in Oceanside, California is described. The material includes 77 bones from 21 species, only one of which (Podiceps parvus) is extinct. Two previously described Pleistocene species (Oxyura bessomi and Bucephala fossilis) are placed in extant species. The first fossil record for Phalaropus lobatus is recorded.