CARD

Locality: on the left (west) side of Smoky River, 410 m asl, directly south of the town of Watino, Peace drainage, Alberta
Map sheet: 83 N/12

Significance: palaeobiology; paléobiologie
Context: Upper Pucci gravel pit, near the base of alluvial sand and gravel forming the second terrace 40 m above the river and 130 m below the prairie level
Associated taxa: Mammalia: Bison priscus cf.

Comments: GkQj-VP, Watino: Bones were recovered from the Northern Alberta Railway Ballast Pit which has since been recontoured and covered with topsoil. Two GSC dates are much older than expected, but they are consistent with GSC-2865 (HbQh-VP) from a similar stratigraphic position. They indicate that much of the main drainage system of the region had been developed by 10,000 years ago, and the river already had downcut to near its present grade. This, in turn, indicates that either downcutting was extremely rapid during and following retreat of Classical Wisconsinan ice some 2000 to 5000 years earlier, or else illustrates the extremely limited effect the last phase of glaciation had on the region. The area may have been covered solely by early Classical Wisconsinan ice and been relatively unaffected by later readvances. A skull of Bison cf. B. alaskensis, now in the Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton (no. P71.7), was obtained from this pit in 1970 by W. McGurran of the Northern Alberta Railway (Churcher and Wilson, 1979). This is a species of longhorned bison similar to B. priscus, and the dated materials probably derived from this species. The lack of bones other than bison at this level suggests that other large mammals, such as horse, muskox, and mammoth, were scarce in this region at the time, or perhaps locally extinct.

Canada / AB / GkQj-? (Watino bison) / GSC-2895