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- Lab number
- CAMS-38435
- Material dated
- walrus bone collagen; collagène osseux de morse
- Taxa dated
- Odobenus rosmarus tusk (id. by C.R. Harington)
- Locality
- Little Cornwallis Island, between Bathurst and Cornwallis islands, Nunavut
- Map sheet
- 68 H/08
- Submitter
- A.S. Dyke and C.R. Harington
- Date submitted
- October 19, 0098
- Normalized Age
- 990 ± 60
- δ13C (per mil)
- -14.1
- Significance
- palaeobiology; paléobiologie
- Context
- surface, about 70 m asl, overlooking Barrow Strait and McDougall Sound
- Associated taxa
- Mammalia: Odobenus rosmarus
- Additional information
- AMS date.
- Comments
- QiLc-VP, Thorsteinsson site I: Thorsteinsson (1958, p. 17) stated: "Four complete walrus skeletons were seen at elevations from 225 to 300 feet above sea-level, 3 on Cornwallis Island ansd 1 on Little Cornwallis Island. It is difficult to explain the occurrence of walrus skeletons, all several miles from the present shore, except as being deposited when these parts were submerged." The exact locations of these skeletons are shown on GSC Map 1054A in the pocket of Memoir 294. Since Thorsteinsson's comment was written, it has been shown that some walrus remains, particularly complete skeletons, yield radiocarbon ages that place them well above any reasonable contemporaneous shoreline. These appear to represent the remains of animals that wandered inland and died, presumably in a state of disorientation after being frozen out of their breathing holes or after becoming lost. If this animal died at the shoreline, if should date about 8 ka BP.