Larry D. Martin

Native American biological diversity and the biogeographic influence of Ice Age refugia

The Wisconsin glaciation divided North America into a number of ice-free refugia for flora and fauna. Pat- terns of variation of certain North American mammalian species have been interpreted as a product of biological dif- ferentiation arising from isolation in these refugia. Recent- ly, a tripartite biological and linguistic division of human populations in North America has been proposed by a number of researchers. The tripartite division in biological and linguistic traits correlates with three ice-free refugia that existed during the Wisconsin. These refugia would have provided the necessary isolation for the development of biologically and linguistically divergent groups. The human data can be seen as part of a broader pattern of glacial influences on biological variation among North American mammals.

A New Hesperornithid and the Relationships of the Mesozoic Birds

One of the most important avian fossils is a nearly complete skeleton of a hesperornithid from the late Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk Formation of western Kansas found by H. T. Martin in 1894. Williston assigned it to Hesperornis gracilis, a form named by Marsh but never really diagnosed or illustrated. Because of the size and apparent completeness of Marshs monumental work on the Mesozoic birds of North America, these birds have been largely ignored since its publication. This has largely been the fate of H. T. Martins exceptional specimen, parts of which have been figured under both Hesperornis gracilis, and H. regalis. This specimen can now be shown to be a previously undescribed genus of hesperornithiform bird, that provides the basis for a re-evaluation of the relationships of the Hesperornithiformes to other Mesozoic birds. Archaeopteryx is a member of a side-branch of avian evolution, the subclass Sauriurae, which became extinct at the end of the Mesozoic. The hesperornithiform Enaliornis is the earliest bird which can be shown to belong to the subclass Omithurae to which all modem birds belong.

The 12 Mile Creek site: a reinvestigation

The 12 Mile Creek site in western Kansas was the first site yielding a fluted projectile point to be excavated in North America by scientific personnel. The Bison from this kill site were used in forming the original concept of B. occidentalis . A new study of the site including radiocarbon dates and a pollen analysis suggests the kill took place in a pine parkland about 10,300 years ago. The artifact from this site reported by Williston seems to be a Clovis projectile point.

Special Paper: Ice-Age Geography and the Distribution of Native North American Languages

Wisconsinan biogeographic zones and physical biogeographic zones of the Holocene and widespread re- geographic barriers resulting from glaciation appear to treat of continental glaciation. Evidence suggests that have played a role in the distribution of native North some language groups adapted more successfully than American languages. A number of modem language fami- others to those new environmental conditions, and extend- lies have distributions remarkably similar to those of Wis- ed their ranges. consinan biogeographic zones. Wisconsinan glacial ice appears to have been an important isolating agent, leading Key words. Paleoindians, ethnic distribution, Ice-age to linguistic divergence. The end of the Wisconsinan was geography, linguistic differentiation, faunal provinces, followed by the establishment of the radically different North America.

A Clovis Projectile Point from the Kansas River

The presence of a Clovis projectile point near Bonner Springs, Kansas, indicates that Clovis people occupied the area between the Clovis site at Twelve Mile Creek in Western Kansas and the Clovis site at Kimmswick near Saint Louis, Missouri. The Symbos-Cervalces fauna from the Kansas River suggests that the Clovis occupation of the Bonner Springs area was probably ecologically more similar to the Clovis occupation in the vicinity of Kimmswick than to the Clovis occupation in the vicinity of the Twelve Mile Creek site in Western Kansas. The evidence of human occupation of Kansas during the Pleistocene is very sparse. This is ironic because the first scientifically recovered proof of mans association with extinct Ice Age animals in the Western Hemisphere was found at the Twelve Mile Creek site in western Kansas in 1895 (Osborn, 1910). A fluted projectile point was found in association with Bison antiquus at the Twelve Mile Creek site. This style of projectile point was later found in a number of other sites in North America, frequently in association with the bones of extinct elephants. Recently a Clovis projectile point was recovered from a gravel bar on the Kansas River near Bonner Springs, Kansas.

A New Species of the Oligocene Eomyid Rodent Centimanomys

During an examination of Oligocene vertebrates in the University of Kansas Museum Natural History collection, the senior author came upon a partial left ramus of an eomyid rodent collected by Robert W. Wilson in 1958. It proves to be a new species of Centimanomys Galbreath.