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Dire wolves are considered to be one of the most common and widespread large carnivores in Pleistocene America1, yet relatively little is known about their evolution or extinction. Here, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of dire wolves, we sequenced five genomes from sub-fossil remains dating from 13,000 to more than 50,000 years ago. Our results indicate that although they were similar morphologically to the extant grey wolf, dire wolves were a highly divergent lineage that split from living canids around 5.7 million years ago. In contrast to numerous examples of hybridization across Canidae2,3, there is no evidence for gene flow between dire wolves and either North American grey wolves or coyotes. This suggests that dire wolves evolved in isolation from the Pleistocene ancestors of these species. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves, while the ancestors of grey wolves, coyotes and dholes evolved in Eurasia and colonized North America only relatively recently. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

During 1982 and 1983, Central Washington Archaeological Survey conducted extensive text excavations at prehistoric archaeological sites 450K196 and 450K197, north central Washington. Funding was provided by the U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Seattle District as a part of the Chief Joseph Dam Cultural Resources Program. The study was conducted to assess the sites' cultural significance and to determine whether sediments at 450K197 could provide data on the periodicity of flooding on the Columbia River during the past two millenia. Occupations, which rest on the surfaces of individual flood deposits, represent short-term hunting camps, spring base camps, a warriors' bivouac and a modern berry drying encampment. All occupations are little disturbed and contain well-preserved biotic remains and discrete artifact patterning. Mitigation is recommended. An appendix is included describing flood periodicity on the Columbia River, analyzed by comparing actual sedimentation frequencies at 450K197 with hypothetical models of sedimentation to determine whether flood frequencies have varied during the last 1900 years.

This document reports the techniques and findings of a series of cultural resource test excavations at Columbia River Mile (RM) 590, near Belvedere in Okanogan and Douglas Counties, Washington. We present here the procedures used to test sites and analyze resultant data, summarize the results of analyses, and offer an evaluation of each site's information potential. Working from an evolutionary-ecological point of view, we (1) identify and date each occupation zone in each site; (2) identify each occupation to a settlement class based on features, fauna, and lithic-use wear; and (3) offer a tentative reconstruction of settlement patterns for the first four periods of local prehistory (5000 to 1600 BP). Combining our findings with an environmental reconstruction drawn from local geomorphological data and regional paleontologic, geologic and palynological records, and with archaeological data from elsewhere in the Columbia Plateau, we generated a revised outline of regional prehistory.