Hopkins, SamanthaMcLaughlin, Win2018-09-062018-09-062018-09-06https://hdl.handle.net/1794/23810Kyrgyzstan is the single most seismically active country in the world. Accessing the past, and therefore future hazard of faults, necessitates a high-resolution understanding of the timing of different geologic events. With no radiometrically datable rocks from the Neogene of Kyrgyzstan, I herein present the first work formally describing Neogene vertebrate faunas from the Kochkor Basin of Kyrgyzstan. I utilize a combination of biostratigraphy and magnetostratigraphy to constrain the timing of when the vertebrate assemblages were emplaced, and have dated the three bone beds to all fall in the latest Miocene, spanning 9-5 million years ago. All four bone beds represent mass death assemblages, inferred to be from drought-caused mortality. The timing of the deposits corresponds to uplift in the Pamirs, Himalayan, and greater Tibetan Plateau, which would have blocked the Indian monsoon from reaching Central Asia, forever altering the climate and biota of the region. This change is reflected in the shifting mammals faunas, as evidenced by the novel rhinocerotid I describe in a phylogeographic context.en-USCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-USBiogeographyGeochronologyKyrgyzstanMammaliaPaleontologyRhinocerotidaeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation