Where: Chile (45.3° S, 71.5° W)

• coordinate estimated from map

• small collection-level geographic resolution

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

• López-Mendoza and Mena-Larraín 2011: The stratigraphic deposit of the cave has a depth of 150 cm (Figure 2b). From top to bottom, we can first rec- ognize a layer 1 that has very few cultural items, most of them due to perturbation processes such as those that -as we will see- have acted upon bones. Below it, we find sev- eral layers that are largely anthropogenic in origin. On the lower part of layer 3, the fragmented remains of ten human skeletons are found (Mena et al., 2003). Below this cultural layer and in a discordant fashion, we find layers 4 and 5 that are formed by rocky debris and collapse, and by organic clay and sand, dating to 10,500–9,000 BP and 10,500– 13,500 BP, respectively. Layer 4 corresponds to a complex and not yet well understood deposit (it encompasses a 1,500 years hiatus and at least one rock fall and active debris entry, which could have impinged on vertical migration of dermal bones, but not at the site’s scale). Layers 5 (and perhaps the lower section of 4 or 4B) are characterized by abundant bones of extinct species and by what seems to be degraded extinct ground sloth feces. Finally, Layer 6 corresponds to stratified sands belonging to a Pleistocene proglacial lake whose original date is unknown (it contacts the rocky foundations of the cave). This layer doesn`t have any faunal remains (not even diatoms or other microscopic organisms) and we only know it was deposited before 13,500 BP (Núñez et al., 2005).

Environment/lithology: cave; unlithified sandstone

Size class: macrofossils

Collected in 2006

Primary reference: R. Labarca, F. J. Caro, N. A. Villavicencio, J. M. Capriles, E. Briones, C. Latorre, and C. M. Santoro. 2021. A Partially Complete Skeleton of Hippidion Saldiasi Roth, 1899 (Mammalia: Perissodactyla) from the Late Pleistocene of the High Andes in Northern Chile. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 40(6):e1862132 [P. Mannion/G. Varnham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 225572: authorized by Philip Mannion, entered by Grace Varnham on 17.05.2022

Creative Commons license: CC0 (CC0)