November 2017 Program

Location: Harrington Hall - UW-Oshkosh Campus

Speaker: Ray Reser, Ph.D., Director, Museum of Natural History, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Topic: Paleoindian of Arizona.

Title: Tracking the Ephemeral: Mammoths, Shrapnel and the Pursuit of Man in the Tularosa Basin.

Abstract: Pleistocene trackway sites associated with evidence of human occupation or resource extraction are rare in North America. The iconic White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico offers both unique insights and significant challenges to interpreting Paleo-Indian occupation of a once resource-rich environment
now dominated by the planet’s largest gypsum dune field. Ichnofossils associated with a suite of Pleistocene fauna occur along the paleo strandlines of fossil Lake Otero on White Sands Monument within the closed drainage system of the Tularosa Basin. These trackways, potentially associated with early human presence in the area, seasonally become exposed, and weather away rapidly due to climate and sediment characteristics. A host of unexploded ordinance from decades of use as a live-fire air training field keeps the fieldwork interesting.