Implications of Radiocarbon Dates from Potter Creek Cave, Shasta County, California, USA

Abstract

New dates obtained from the bone collagen of mammals from the deposits in Potter Creek Cave, Shasta County, California, USA, show that these fossils were emplaced over the last 30,000 yr. The dates support the assignment of the fauna in the cave to the late Pleistocene and are contemporaneous to the dates obtained from the fauna of Samwel Cave located 5 km to the north. These new dates do not support previous radiocarbon dates suggesting a Holocene extinction of the extinct bovid Euceratherium collinum, and demonstrate that this and other megafauna were not present in the vicinity after the terminal Pleistocene.