Stark Variation: New Insights into Dire Wolves and their Interactions with Humans

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Human Interactions with Extinct Fauna" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Dire wolves are an iconic extinct Pleistocene species in the Americas and their interactions with humans at Paleoindian sites has been largely unknown. Here we explore potential interactions between dire wolves and Paleoindians at sites in the San Pedro Valley, Arizona. We also present new radiocarbon dates and the results of our ancient DNA analysis, which reveals a surprising phylogeny for dire wolves. We discuss what this taxonomy may mean for dire wolf paleoecology in the Americas and their interactions with newly-arrived human hunters.

Cite this Record

Stark Variation: New Insights into Dire Wolves and their Interactions with Humans. Angela Perri, Jeffrey Saunders, Greger Larson, Laurent Frantz, Alice Mouton. Presented at The 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Albuquerque, NM. 2019 ( tDAR id: 450815)

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Spatial Coverage

min long: -168.574; min lat: 7.014 ; max long: -54.844; max lat: 74.683 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25853