Ref ID:	27360
Ref Type:	Journal Article
Authors:	Shao, Qingfeng Wang, Yuan Voinchet, Pierre Zhu, Min Lin, Min Rink, William Jack Jin, Changzhu Bahain, Jean-Jacques
Title:	U-series and ESR/U-series dating of the <i>Stegodon-Ailuropoda</i> fauna at Black Cave, Guangxi, southern China with implications for the timing of the extinction of <i>Gigantopithecus blacki</i>
Date:	2017
Source:	Quaternary International
Abstract:	<i>Gigantopithecus blacki</i> was once a common primate during Early Pleistocene, distributed throughout southern China, but then it gradually declined with time and finally became extinct probably during Middle Pleistocene. Black Cave in Guangxi (the Zhuang Nationality Autonomous Region) was the first site yielding <i>G. blacki</i> teeth in-situ in 1956. It also produced numerous mammalian fossils belonging to the typical Middle Pleistocene <i>Stegodon–Ailuropoda</i> fauna from sediments overlying the G. blacki level. The present study carried out coupled ESR/U-series dating study of five Bovidae teeth from this palaeontological layer and obtained a weighted mean age of 383 ± 20 ka for this <i>Stegodon–Ailuropoda</i> fauna. This age estimate on fossil teeth is constrained by two <sup>230</sup>Th/U ages of 404 ± 24 ka and 382 ± 9 ka obtained on speleothems formed below and above the level of the <i>Stegodon–Ailuropoda</I> fauna. The Black Cave <I>Stegodon–Ailuropoda</I> fauna can be therefore correlated with MIS 11, and the remains of <i>G. blacki</i> should be older than 400 ka.
Date Created:	3/27/2017
Volume:	434
Page Start:	65
Page End:	74