Paleoecology of the Late Pleistocene Fauna from the Lamb Spring Site, Colorado

Summary

The Lamb Spring site located in central Colorado is a late Quaternary locality with stratified Pleistocene and Holocene faunal remains. The late Pleistocene component is dominated by mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) but contains other grazing taxa like horse, bison, American camel, Harlan’s ground sloth, etc. The general lack of microfauna from this horizon makes detailed paleoecological interpretations difficult. However, the megafauna point to a dominance of grassland with the possibility of scattered trees. This grassland/savannah environment and the Lamb Spring fauna are similar to other faunas throughout the plains region. It is similar structurally to the Arctic Steppe biome but it can be clearly differentiated from it by species composition. We suggest that the more "southern" environments of the central and southern Great Plains may have been a different super province, the Mammoth Grassland/Savanna.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22043