Sandia Cave Unit J (Holocene of the United States)

Also known as Topmost Level

Where: Sandoval County, New Mexico (35.3° N, 106.4° W: paleocoordinates 35.3° N, 106.4° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Holocene (0.0 - 0.0 Ma)

• there is a single 14C date of "870+/-110" years B.P. on "organic debris" but the unit spans most of the Holocene (Haynes and Agogino 1986)

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: cave; shelly/skeletal, conglomeratic siltstone

• "Recent debris... dust mixed with rock fragments, bones, sticks, twigs, dung, and vegetable matter" (Haynes and Agogino 1986)

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: midden

Collected by W. L. Bliss, F. C. Hibben in 1936-1941

Collection methods: quarrying,

• the original excavation was of the first three 23 meters of the cave

Primary reference: F. C. Hibben. 1941. Evidences of early occupation in Sandia Cave, New Mexico, and other sites in the Sandia-Manzano region. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 99(23):1-44 [J. Alroy/J. Alroy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: archaeological analysis

PaleoDB collection 93375: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 16.01.2010

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Mammalia
 Rodentia - Cricetidae
Neotoma sp. Say and Ord 1825 pack rat
 Rodentia - Erethizontidae
Erethizon sp. Cuvier 1822 North American porcupine
 Carnivora - Ursidae
Ursus sp. Linnaeus 1758 bear
 Artiodactyla - Cervidae
Cervus sp. Linnaeus 1758 deer
Odocoileus sp. Rafinesque 1832 New World deer
 Artiodactyla - Bovidae
Ovis canadensis Shaw 1804 bighorn sheep
 Chiroptera - Molossidae
Tadarida mexicana free-tailed bat
"also other sp."