Muskox Bone of Possible Wisconsin Age from Banks Island, Northwest Territories

Abstract

During a summer 1963 study of the terrestrial vertebrate fauna, a Bernard River locality was searched for fossils. The only specimen found was the right half of a left metacarpal of Ovibos moschatus with a radiocarbon age of >34,000 yr, suggesting that muskoxen were on Banks Island at the height of the Wisconsin glaciation or earlier. Conflicting views concerning the existence of a Wisconsin refugium on this island are discussed; the evidence suggests that such did exist isolated from Beringia and from any of the northern islands.