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...George Quimby (1958, 1960). These authors were not only interested in human chronology in the Pleistocene of Michigan, but also by the related question of how these people subsisted in the environment in which they lived. Mason questioned why there were no human fluted spear points in the northern third of the Lower Peninsula and suggested there were ecological reasons for the limited distribution of these artifacts.
Quimby noted relationships between humans, vegetation, arid proboscideans. Both Mason and Quimby believed that the early humans of the entire Great Lakes region hunted mastodonts, based on their observations that many of the fluted points in the southern part of the region were very similar to the Clovis points in the West used by human mammoth hunters. Later, Quimby (1960) stared that the distribution of fluted points and known mastodont remains in Michigan was related to the probability that early humans hunted these proboscideans.
Although this assumption was questioned by Cleland (1966), the term "Mason-Quimby Line" became common one to depict the northern extent of all of the valid mastodont and mammoth records in the state as well as most of the Pleistocene human discoveries. (e.g., Holman 2001, Figure 10, 19). In fact, the name became so popular that abbreviated references such as "north or south of the "MQ" are understood by both archaeologists and paleontologists.
The Holman (1991) paper includes a re-examination of the Mason-Quimby Line from the standpoint that there are no authentic Pleistocene records of any mammal species north of the line. It was suggested that a parsimonious explanation of this could be based on the end positions of the ice sheet near the termination of the Wisconsinan and the mass of sterile sediments that must have been left in its wake. It was proposed that the area north of the Mason-Quimby line was basically an ecologically unstable tension zone during interstadial and postglacial Wisconsinan times, and thus was unable to support sufficient numbers of mammals to contribute to the fossil record. To add to this, there are no authentic Pleistocene records of any vertebrates (fishes, birds, amphibians, reptiles) north of the Mason-Quimby line (Holman 2001).
Relative to the authenticity of Pleistocene vertebrate records in Michigan; most vertebrate paleontologists would want the preserved remains to meet at least one of the following criteria to be considered of Pleistocene age:
A. To represent a known extinct Pleistocene vertebrate.
B. To beat least 10,000 radiocarbon years old.
C. To be in association, in undisturbed context, with an extinct Pleistocene vertebrate.
D. To be found in undisturbed Pleistocene Lake Bed sediments
E. To be found in association, in undisturbed contest, with Pleistocene human artifacts.
INTRODUCTION
The few records of Michigan Pleistocene vertebrates, other than the numerous reported occurrences of proboscideans, is are striking (Holman 1988). Thus, the discovery of an extinct giant beaver (Castoroides ohioensis) jaw, only the tenth record of this species from the state, and north of previous records, is important. Moreover, the discovery of mammoth (Mammuthus sp.) remains (which have since been radiocarbon dated) near the northern limit of its range in...
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