U-series dating of hominin fossil-bearing Panlong Cave in Guangdong Province, southern China

Two hominin teeth and an abundance of faunal remains were recovered from Panlong Cave in Guangdong Province, southern China in 1987. The site has remained largely unknown to the prehistoric community mainly for the lack of reliable chronological constraints. This paper reports high-precision mass spectrometric U-series dating of eight calcite samples from the extant cross-section. Based on the dates on the overlying flowstone layers, the hominin teeth should be definitely older than 292 ± 10 ka. Furthermore, as indicated by the U-series ages on the secondary calcite formations the fossiliferous deposits should be older than 441 ± 18 ka. These dates support the paleontological inference that Panlong Cave may predate the nearby Maba hominin site. The hominin specimens from the site may thus represent an early member of the Ailuropoda-Stegodon fauna and one of the oldest non-erectus Middle Pleistocene hominin fossils in southern China.