Palaeontology

Lots of dangerous animals lived here long ago.... There was a big beaver there and he had a dam across the Yukon River. According to archaeologists, he's (the big beaver) just as big as a big black bear." Charlie Peter Charlie Sr. in Rampart House (Te'sek Gehtr'oonatun Zzeh College 1993).

INTRODUCTION

Palaeontology is the study of creatures of earlier times, a word derived from the Greek words palaios meaning old, onta meaning beings, and logos meaning study. The key to the study of creatures of earlier times is the remains or evidence of animals and plants which we call fossils.

Fossils range in size from huge dinosaur skeletons to microscopic plant pollen. Most fossils are formed from the hard parts of plants and animals, especially shells, bones, teeth and wood. Fossils may be preserved plants or animals, unchanged from the original form, or may be a replacement of the original by mineral deposition.

This chapter builds on the knowledge of the geology and geomorphology of the Old Crow Basin. For more information on the chronology of the rock formations that contain the earliest fossils found in the area, see Geology. For a chronology of the last two million years, the research techniques that allow scientists to date fossil remains, and an account of the glacial times and the forces that have shaped and continue to shape the land, see Geomorphology. This chapter focuses on the fossils themselves and the animals they represent. On the other hand, the Geomorphology chapter focuses on the changes in the environment due to natural processes and the study of those processes.

Although this chapter discusses fossils of the distant past, it focuses on the life of the last two million years as revealed by fossils and their surrounding materials. The major significance of the Old Crow Basin in terms of fossils is the Ice Age fossils. This chapter also presents the palaeontologists' views of the prehistory, paleoclimate and paleoecology of the area.

In the Old Crow Basin fossils of ancient mammals and objects modified or made by early humans (called artifacts) may be found together in the same deposits. The story of early man in this area is provided in Archaeology. Archaeology is the study of the human past through material remains, with the aim of ordering and describing the events of the past.

One of the most significant features of Vuntut National Park and the Old Crow Special Management Area in terms of palaeontology is the fact that the area was not covered by the huge ice sheets that covered much of North America during the last Ice Age, and that the landforms have not been modified by the massive power of these ice masses. Rather, the landscape has evolved over a million years or more of weathering, erosion, and ice-related processes. The name given to this vast unglaciated area straddling the arctic circle in parts of Alaska,Yukon, and and the adjacent Northwest Territories, and extending into Siberia, is Beringia. Beringia refers to the landmass that has remained generally ice free even during the time of continental glaciation. Beringia, the Bering Sea and the Bering Strait were all named after Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer who served in the Russian Navy in the early 1700s.

It is the fossil record preserved in the frozen Beringian sediments that makes the Old Crow Basin one of Canada's most important palaeontological resources. This chapter focuses on the work of the palaeontologists and their local Vuntut Gwitchin guides and co-workers, and the fossils they discovered.