86 J. Alan Holman and Jerry N. McDonald 



environmental change in the middle Appalachian region through the 

 late Wisconsin and Holocene. 



The first known herptile specimen to be collected at Saltville was a 

 partial limb bone of an anuran (fam., gen. et sp. indet.) collected on 1 1 

 August 1966, by the VPI-SI field crew (Catalog and field notes, 1966, 

 VPI-Smithsonian Saltville Expedition). Bartlett found the second 

 specimen — a costal bone of the Painted Turtle, Chrysemys picta (USNM 

 404721)— on 30 October 1978 (C. S. Bartlett, Jr., field notes, 30 October 

 1978). The 1980-1984 Radford University excavations recovered numer- 

 ous herptile specimens by wet screening the finer fluvial sediments and 

 closely examining thinly sliced lentic deposits of clay and silt. Vertical 

 and horizontal provenience and matrix data for specimens have also 

 been collected since 1980, which allows differentiation of faunules and 

 inferences about faunal change (or the absence of change) over time. 



Here, we describe the generically and specifically identifiable herp- 

 tile material collected at Saltville through 1984, including the division of 

 this material into three radiocarbon-dated faunules. In addition, we dis- 

 cuss the sampling function of the various depositional processes and 

 comment on the paleoecological implications of these faunules. The 

 herptile material reported here is the first to be described from the Salt- 

 ville locality, and is also the first to be described from a stratified subae- 

 rial, hydraulically deposited site in the middle Appalachians. This is, 

 therefore, a contribution to the controlled chronostratigraphy of late 

 Quaternary herptiles in this region, a contribution free of the collecting 

 and preservation biases characteristic of herpetofaunas from karst or 

 karstlike features in the middle Appalachians. 



STUDY AREA 



Saltville Valley lies some 525 m above sea level in the Valley and 

 Ridge Physiographic Province in southwest Virginia (Fig. 1). The floor 

 of this small valley slopes gradually to the north, converging on a 

 water gap that leads to the nearby North Fork of the Holston River. 

 The valley is bordered on the northeast and southeast by foothills of 

 Walker Mountain, and on the northwest by low limestone hills. 



The herptiles described in this paper came from four sites on the 

 valley bottom (Fig. 1). Most specimens were collected at SV-1 (the 

 "musk ox" site: 36°52'19"N, 81°46'24"W), located near the south- 

 west end of "The Flat" (McDonald and Bartlett 1983). Six specimens 

 came from SV-2 (the "drug store" site: 36°52'52"N, 81°45'48"W), 

 and one came from CSB-2A (36°52'29"N, 81°45'51"W). The anu- 

 ran bone collected by VPI-SI in 1966 came from SI-1 (36°52'36"N, 

 81°46'01"W). SV-1 and CSB-2A are on the Glade Spring quadrangle, 

 and SV-2 and SI-1 are on the Saltville quadrangle, USGS 7.5' series. 



Saltville Valley lies upon the Mississippian Maccrady Formation, a 

 variable sequence of shales, siltstones, limestones, and dolomites con- 

 taining substantial quantities of gypsum, anhydrite, and halite (Cooper 



