Lost Chicken Creek (Purdy Collection) (Pleistocene of the United States)

Where: Alaska (64.1° N, 141.9° W: paleocoordinates 64.0° N, 141.9° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

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

• "late Wisconsin" with bone collagen radiocarbon dates of "26 760 +/- 300 years BP" (Equus sp., specimen collected in 1965 somewhere in the area but apparently not at the site), "20 500 +/- 390 years BP" (Symbos cavifrons), "10370 +/- 160 years BP" (bison tibia), and "10050 +/- 150 years BP" (Cervus elaphus)

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: "floodplain"; unlithified, black, carbonaceous siltstone

• "The relatively great spread of dates could be accounted for by massive downslope movement of mammalian remains [during early postglacial time] from the higher, former steppe-like areas where they were deposited throughout the late Wisconsin"
• "a section exposed at the margin" of the nearby sluice pond includes "2.4-3.7 m of frozen black organic silt or 'muck" overlain by silt, and "Presumably, most of the mammal fossils are derived from near the bse of the frozen muck"

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by B. Purdy in 1974

Collection methods: quarrying,

• "Pleistocene mammal bones have been washed out of the sediments... for many years and were picked up occasionally by local collectors" but this material apparently was "donated to the National Museums of Canada by Barbara Purdy" and apparently "excavated" in part or whole in 1974 collection

Primary reference: C. R. Harington. 1980. Pleistocene mammals from Lost Chicken Creek, Alaska. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 17(2):168-198 [J. Alroy/J. Alroy/J. Ju]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 93555: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 24.01.2010

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• a different collection from Lost Chicken Creek but apparently not from one site was described by Whitmore and Foster (1967)
Mammalia
 Proboscidea - Elephantidae
Mammuthus primigenius Blumenbach 1799 wooly mammoth
 Artiodactyla - Bovidae
"Bison crassicornis" = Bison priscus, Ovis ? dalli, "Symbos cavifrons" = Bootherium bombifrons
"Bison crassicornis" = Bison priscus Bojanus 1827 bison
Ovis ? dalli Nelson 1884 Dall sheep
"Symbos cavifrons" = Bootherium bombifrons Harlan 1825 antelope
 Artiodactyla - Cervidae
Rangifer tarandus Linnaeus 1758 reindeer
Cervus elaphus Linnaeus 1758 red deer
 Perissodactyla - Equidae
"Equus (Asinus) lambei" = Equus alaskae, Equus (Asinus) cf. kiang
"Equus (Asinus) lambei" = Equus alaskae Winans 1989 horse
Equus (Asinus) cf. kiang Moorcroft 1841 kiang