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The tar pits of Rancho La Brea are a unique window onto the biology and ecology of the terminal Pleistocene in southern California. In this study we capitalize on recent advances in understanding of La Brea tar pit chronology to perform the first morphometric study of crania of the dire wolf, Canis dirus, over time. We first present new data on tooth fracture and wear from pits dated older than heretofore analyzed, and demonstrate that fracture and wear events, and the increased competition and heightened carcass utilization they are thought to represent, were of varying intensity across the sampled time intervals. Skull size, and by extension body size, is shown to differ significantly among pits at La Brea, with the strongest single observation being reduction in body size at the last glacial maximum. Skull size variation is shown to be a result of both ontogenetic and evolutionary factors, neither of which is congruent with a temporal version of Bergmann’s rule. Skull shape difference among the pits is also significant, with shape variability attributable to both neotenic effects in populations with high breakage and wear, and evolutionary changes possibly due to climate change. Testing of this hypothesis requires better accuracy and precision in La Brea carbon data, a program that is within the reach of current AMS dating technology. F. Robin O''Keefe. Department of Biological Sciences, Marshall University, One John Marshall Drive, Huntington, West Virginia 25701, USA, okeefef@marshall.edu Wendy J. Binder. Department of Biological Sciences, Loyola Marymount University, One LMU Drive, MS 8220, Los Angeles, California 90045, USA, Wendy.Binder@lmu.edu Stephen R. Frost. Department of Anthropology, Condon Hall 353, 1218 University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA, sfrost@uoregon.edu Rudyard W. Sadlier. Department of Biological Sciences, Saint Xavier University, 3700 West 103rd Street, Chicago, Illinois 60655, USA, rudyardw@gmail.com Blaire Van Valkenburgh. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Los Angeles, Terasaki Life Sciences 2163, 610 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA, bvanval@ucla.edu

Cranial morphometrics of the dire wolf, Canis dirus, at Rancho La Brea: temporal variability and its links to nutrient stress and climate