THE LATEST PLEISTOCENE VERTEBRATE FAUNA AND STRATIGRAPHY OF MACY LOCALITY 100 FROM THE SOUTHERN HIGH PLAINS, TEXAS

The late Quaternary record from the Southern High Plains has been instrumental in developing a chronology of late Pleistocene faunal change and cultural succession for North America. The developing geochronology, stratigraphy, and faunal assemblage from Macy Locality 100 offers a rich new dataset for 21^st century exploration of persistent questions surrounding latest Pleistocene transitions. Macy Locality 100 is located on the eastern edge of the Southern High Plains, Texas. Alluvial units at the locality record portions of the paleo-valley axis and margin within the Spring Creek drainage basin, an ephemeral tributary of the upper Brazos River drainage basin. These deposits document shifts in the fluvial regime within the paleo-valley that were manifestations of late Pleistocene to early Holocene local landscape evolution and regional climatic change. The deposits also provide abundant vertebrate skeletal remains. The Macy Locality 100 faunal assemblage is among the richest from the region, comparable to the late Pleistocene records from Lubbock Lake and Blackwater Draw. The faunal assemblage contains significant samples of an array of taxa, including the extinct box turtle Terrapene carolina putnami. Recovered material includes taxa poorly documented (e.g., Dasypus bellus) or previously unknown (e.g., Zapus hudsonius, Panthera leo atrox) from the Southern High Plains. The environmental and faunal records at Macy Locality 100 are constrained by a series of radiocarbon ages spanning from 12,190 ±600 to 10,630 ±150 ¹⁴C yrs BP. Macy Locality 100 provides a comprehensive view of a late Wisconsinan vertebrate community, with geochronological control, in the context of changing environments during the final millennium of the Pleistocene on the Southern High Plains.