Elizabeth Helen Reed

Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia II

Abstract This paper provides an update of the original review of Pleistocene vertebrate fossil sites of the South East region of South Australia. It includes recent discoveries, revisions of faunal lists for some sites and the results of recently completed research projects.

Disarticulation of kangaroo skeletons in semi-arid Australia

This study presents a natural disarticulation sequence for the western grey kangaroo, Macropus fuliginosus, from surface bone assemblages in semi-arid South Australia. Comparison with published disarticulation sequences for African ungulates reveals significant differences in the kangaroo sequence, including earlier disarticulation of the forelimb long bones, carpus and cervical elements, and later disarticulation of the caudal vertebrae, and hindlimb long bones. These differences closely correspond to anatomical and morphological features of the kangaroo skeleton. The results of this study suggest that anatomy plays an important role in disarticulation and may ultimately control the process even following utilisation by predators and scavengers. The disarticulation sequence reported here has useful applications for the interpretation of fossil bone assemblages containing both extant and extinct kangaroos.

Postglacial reorganization of a small‐mammal paleocommunity in southern Australia reveals thresholds of change

Natural variation describes the normal fluctuations that occur in ecosystems over time in the absence of significant human-driven disturbance, providing a buffer that facilitates ecological resilience. Long-term data on ecosystems are useful in developing baselines of natural variation and identifying the limits to resilience within different ecosystems. Here, we examined two contemporaneous vertebrate fossil assemblages of the Naracoorte Caves in southern Australia to determine the magnitude and extent of natural variation and resilience exhibited by a small-mammal paleocommunity through the last glacial cycle (c. 50–10 kyr BP). We also investigated the effect of sampling the assemblages at different timescales on observed patterns of variability and quantified sampling effects to test the robustness of the temporal trends. Our results show that the paleocommunity was structurally and compositionally stable through the early glacial period and last glacial maximum (LGM), with variability exhibited only i...

Late Quaternary small mammal faunas of the Naracoorte Caves World Heritage Area

Abstract The vertebrate fossil deposits of the Naracoorte Caves in south eastern South Australia preserve a long-term record of local faunas. We provide here an updated list of small mammal faunas of late Quaternary (c. <50 ka) aged fossil assemblages from Wet, Robertson and Blanche Caves as a basis for understanding past and future patterns in species occurrence. The updated list includes seven species previously unrecorded from the <50 ka period from this region. Of these, two species (Dasycercus sp. indet. and Pseudomys novaehollandiae) are new to the Naracoorte fossil record and have no known regional historical (European colonisation to 1950) or contemporary (post 1950) distribution. Review of fossil collections such as these is crucial for providing up-to-date species occurrence data which can be used to establish baselines of past species diversity and information about the past geographic ranges of individual taxa through time.

Chronology and stratigraphy of the Wet Cave vertebrate fossil deposit, Naracoorte, and relationship to paleoclimatic conditions of the Last Glacial Cycle in south-eastern Australia

The Wet Cave vertebrate fossil deposit of the Naracoorte Caves in south-eastern South Australia contains a rich and diverse assemblage of small mammal fauna known to span the Upper Pleistocene–Holocene. Here, we describe five previously unidentified in situ units (A, B, C, E and F) and one likely reworked unit (D) in the Wet Cave sedimentary profile, which are correlated with paleoclimatic conditions associated with the Last Glacial Cycle. Additional radiocarbon dates presented here provide a finer temporal resolution for the upper sections of the sequence than previously available and reveal rapid deposition of polished quartz sands laminated with brown silts during the last glacial maximum (LGM). Change in sediment type and depositional processes are dated from 16.8 to 16.4 k cal y BP and are associated with the onset of deglaciation. The characteristics of the five in situ depositional units are similar to those identified from the contemporaneous fossil and sedimentary sequence of Blanche Cave 3rd Chamber, located approximately 400 m away, reflecting interactions between paleoclimate, sediment mobility and deposition at this locality. Greater variation is evident between the Wet Cave sedimentary profile and the inner chamber of Robertson Cave, located approximately 6 km away and shows that local processes and cave structure exerted some control on sediment accumulation. Paleoclimatic inferences from the depositional sequence of Wet Cave are broadly consistent with those inferred from regional landforms for south-eastern Australia but provide a local signal more suitable for cross-correlation of the fossil faunas. In particular, the Wet Cave sequence suggests that local conditions were relatively stable in the lead up to the LGM despite fluctuation in both local and regional effective precipitation. Sedimentary units associated with the post-LGM deglaciation are characterised by alternating sand and sandy-silt layers, assumed to reflect the impact of enhanced seasonality and/or climatic fluctuation leading towards the Holocene.