Spatio-temporal variation in the preservation of ancient faunal remains
Palaeodemographic studies of animals using frequency distributions of radiocarbon dates are increasingly used in studies of Quaternary extinction but are complicated by taphonomic bias, or the loss of material through time. Current taphonomic models are based on the temporal frequency distributions...
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crroyalsociety:10.1098/rsbl.2015.0823 2024-06-02T08:01:17+00:00 Spatio-temporal variation in the preservation of ancient faunal remains Surovell, Todd A. Pelton, Spencer R. 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0823 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0823 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0823 en eng The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ Biology Letters volume 12, issue 2, page 20150823 ISSN 1744-9561 1744-957X journal-article 2016 crroyalsociety https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0823 2024-05-07T14:16:33Z Palaeodemographic studies of animals using frequency distributions of radiocarbon dates are increasingly used in studies of Quaternary extinction but are complicated by taphonomic bias, or the loss of material through time. Current taphonomic models are based on the temporal frequency distributions of sediments, but bone is potentially lost at greater rates because not all sedimentary contexts preserve bone. We test the hypotheses that (i) the loss of bone over time is greater than that of sediment and (ii) this rate of loss varies geographically at large scales. We compiled radiocarbon dates on Pleistocene-aged bone from eastern Beringia (EB), the contiguous United States (CUSA) and South America (SA), from which we developed models of taphonomic loss. We find that bone is lost at greater rates than terrestrial sediment in general, but only for CUSA and SA. Bone in EB is lost at approximately the same rate as terrestrial sediments, which demonstrates the excellent preservation environments of arctic regions, presumably due to preservative effects of permafrost. These differences between bone and sediment preservation as well as between arctic and non-arctic regions should be taken into account by any research addressing past faunal population dynamics based on temporal frequency distributions. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic permafrost Beringia The Royal Society Arctic Biology Letters 12 2 20150823 |
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Open Polar |
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The Royal Society |
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crroyalsociety |
language |
English |
description |
Palaeodemographic studies of animals using frequency distributions of radiocarbon dates are increasingly used in studies of Quaternary extinction but are complicated by taphonomic bias, or the loss of material through time. Current taphonomic models are based on the temporal frequency distributions of sediments, but bone is potentially lost at greater rates because not all sedimentary contexts preserve bone. We test the hypotheses that (i) the loss of bone over time is greater than that of sediment and (ii) this rate of loss varies geographically at large scales. We compiled radiocarbon dates on Pleistocene-aged bone from eastern Beringia (EB), the contiguous United States (CUSA) and South America (SA), from which we developed models of taphonomic loss. We find that bone is lost at greater rates than terrestrial sediment in general, but only for CUSA and SA. Bone in EB is lost at approximately the same rate as terrestrial sediments, which demonstrates the excellent preservation environments of arctic regions, presumably due to preservative effects of permafrost. These differences between bone and sediment preservation as well as between arctic and non-arctic regions should be taken into account by any research addressing past faunal population dynamics based on temporal frequency distributions. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Surovell, Todd A. Pelton, Spencer R. |
spellingShingle |
Surovell, Todd A. Pelton, Spencer R. Spatio-temporal variation in the preservation of ancient faunal remains |
author_facet |
Surovell, Todd A. Pelton, Spencer R. |
author_sort |
Surovell, Todd A. |
title |
Spatio-temporal variation in the preservation of ancient faunal remains |
title_short |
Spatio-temporal variation in the preservation of ancient faunal remains |
title_full |
Spatio-temporal variation in the preservation of ancient faunal remains |
title_fullStr |
Spatio-temporal variation in the preservation of ancient faunal remains |
title_full_unstemmed |
Spatio-temporal variation in the preservation of ancient faunal remains |
title_sort |
spatio-temporal variation in the preservation of ancient faunal remains |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0823 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0823 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0823 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic permafrost Beringia |
genre_facet |
Arctic permafrost Beringia |
op_source |
Biology Letters volume 12, issue 2, page 20150823 ISSN 1744-9561 1744-957X |
op_rights |
https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0823 |
container_title |
Biology Letters |
container_volume |
12 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
20150823 |
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1800745596875702272 |