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Gigantopithecus was a giant ape once lived in Southeast Asia and China during the Pleistocene period. Longgupo and Jianshi Longgudong sites in West-Hubei and Three Gorges region in South China are the northernmost evidences of Gigantopithecus presence in the world up to date. To obtain the detailed chronology of these two sites, paleomagnetic and radiometric dating methods were attempted, including cosmogenic burial dating of the sediment. However, the efforts failed because of the scarce of quartz minerals in the sediment. Combined electron spin resonance and uranium series (ESR/U-series) method which could date the fossil teeth directly with the age range from Early to Late Pleistocene was also applied and the results obtained at Longgupo site already published. Here, we report the first radiometric dating results for teeth carried out from Jianshi Longgudong Western Branch cave which is renowned for the discovery of both Gigantopithecus fossils and undoubted stone artifacts. The main challenge of dating Jianshi Longgudong site is the reconstruction of external dose rate of the fossil samples where their provenance sections were not preserved. The mean radioelement concentrations in the sediments measured in the laboratory with different water content estimation were initially used to calculate the ESR/U-series ages. Our ESR/U-series dating of two mammalian fossil teeth from the lower layer 8 gives a weight mean age of 1512 ± 94 ka, while a mean age of 1044 ± 53 ka was obtained for two teeth from the upper layer 4. These ages support one of the previous paleomagnetic dating interpretation which propose that the hominin fossil layer in Jianshi site was not older than 1.78 Ma, i.e. that the upper boundary of the Olduvai subchron, and are in agreement with the faunal evidence which suggest that Jianshi site is younger than the adjacent Longgupo site dated also by combined ESR/U-series and paleomagnetic methods to 2.0-2.5 Ma. Further study of the site including the radiometric dating study of the fossil layers preserved in the Eastern Branch cave may help to achieve a definitive conclusion of the chronology of Gigantopithecus settlement in Jianshi Longgudong site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Middle Palaeolithic site of Mutzig, discovered in 1992, has been the focus of several pits and excavations since 2010, delivering numerous well preserved palaeontological remains and more than 4500 lithic artifacts. The site is made by several rock shelters now collapsed (called "M1" to "M12"), each of them containing several Middle Palaeolithic occupation levels. The faunal assemblage of the main archaeological levels (7a to 7f) from the current excavation (M2) includes woolly mammoth, reindeer, horse, bison and woolly rhinoceros, reflecting a cold steppe context, while microfauna from the lower levels (7D and 10) indicate the presence of forests and suggest a more temperate climate. An OSL dating study places the archaeological sequence as coeval of the onset of the last glacial stage, the Weichselian, during MIS 5, between 105 and 80 ka. The good state of preservation of the abundant faunal remains at Mutzig provided good supports for ESR and U-series dating method. The first results obtained by U-series in 1995 on bones were not encouraging. A first set of teeth (from "M2" site), considered today as more appropriate dating material was therefore analyzed by combined ESR/U-series, using alpha spectrometry in 2013-2015, and yielded ages around 96-100 ka for levels 5-7, in agreement with the OSL data [1]. These analyses showed a quite systematic U-leaching from the dental tissues and the ages were calculated by the "Accelerated Uptake (AU) model" [2]. A second set of teeth from "M2" and "M8" sites was recently analyzed by combined ESR with U-series using quadripolar mass spectrometry (ICP-Q-MS) in MNHN laboratory. The whole set of ESR/U-series data obtained on Mutzig teeth is presented and discussed versus OSL dates allowing a better resolution of the chronology of the site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stepped-terraces systems of several tributaries of the Loire River basin were during the two last decades particular objects of multidisciplinary study, involving Quaternary geology, prehistory and geochronology. The Loire River itself, the longest stream of France, and its fossil stepped terraces system have remained little studied until now from the geochronological point of view, particularly in its middle section, near Orléans. This section is however considered for some fifty years as a key area evidencing the existence in the past of the connection of two older rivers leading to the formation of the current Loire valley. Several researchers have hence proposed the hypothesis of the existence of a Plio-Pleistocene Loire paleo-river flowing northward from the Massif Central to the Seine valley and the English Channel. This Loire River was then disconnected from this one and its flowing was orientated to the west from the Blois area until the Atlantic Ocean. The lack of alluvial deposits in the area between the present-day Loire valley and the Seine one, in relation to significant erosion, means that it is not possible to work directly on ancient evidence of the south-north paleo-river. According to the hypothesis that the alluvial terraces preserved in the intermediate sector were put in place after the connection of the two former rivers (capture), the dating of these sedimentary formations would make it possible to determine when this capture took place. Thus, a series of ESR quartz dates have made it possible to establish a chronological model for this Middle Loire. Five different phases in the evolution of the Middle Loire system can now be described, between 800ka and the present day. These phases seem to indicate a gradual capture, beginning between 900 and 800 ka, with changes in fluvial dynamics, leading to the current course of the river around 250 ka ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paleolithic site of Kalinga, in the Cagayan River basin (Luzon Island), preserves the oldest known traces of human occupation of the Philippines archipelago (709 ± 68 ka1). Luzon island is also known for the fossil's discovery of Homo luzonensis (Callao cave) recently dated at 66.7 ± 1.0 ka2, that constitute the oldest human remains in the Philippines. This contribution presents the results of a geomorphological and geochronological study of the Kalinga site: the Cagayan valley, in order to precise the geochronological framework of this first human settlement. In this area, the sedimentary deposits are mainly fluvial sands terraces partly formed from volcanic minerals. Following the discovery of abundant paleontological remains and lithic tools on surface, the region was the subject of numerous excavations on several sites from the 1970s until now. Since 2014 a new project led by our research team unearthed hundreds of archeological remains (lithic tools and butchery traces) discovered undisturbed in several sequences. Apart from the early middle Pleistocene ages obtained for the Kalinga site, the geomorphology and geochronology of the area are still little known. Through the use of ESR on bleached quartz and 40Ar/39Ar on plagioclase dating methods in association with palaeomagnetism analyses, the chronology of four sequences has been constrained. Our results assert a human occupation between 709 ± 68 ka and 528 ± 40 ka reducing the chronological and archaeological gap between Kalinga and Callao hominins and placing this basin as a central piece of the human arrival in insular Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our understanding of early human dispersals in Europe is based on a handful of archaeological sites spread across the southern margin of the continent. Among them, Pirro Nord-13 (Italy) is usually considered to document the oldest evidence of human presence in Western Europe, although the site itself has never been numerically dated. Instead, the age of the Mode 1 (=Oldowan) lithic assemblage and associated fossils found in this karst fissure has been inferred from biochronology and estimated to be 1.3-1.6 Ma [1]; making it older than the Spanish Mode 1 pre-Jaramillo localities of Atapuerca Sima del Elefante, Barranco León and Fuente Nueva-3, which have been dated by a combination of numerical methods and palaeomagnetism. We provide here the results from the first dating study of the site involving a wide range of methods: Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) and single grain thermally-transferred optically stimulated luminescence (SG TT-OSL) dating of quartz grains, combined U-series/ESR dating of fossil teeth and palaeomagnetic analyses of sediment. Such a multi-technique dating approach offers the possibility to obtain chronological constraints for both the fossil assemblage and the host sediment. The (semi-)independent methods consistently yield an Early Pleistocene age for the site, although the resulting estimates are much younger than initially inferred from biochronology. We discuss potential reliability considerations with the new numerical ages and existing biochronological inference. Nevertheless, these results suggest either a complex taphonomic history in which fossil remains, lithic artifact and host sediment might not be coeval, or at least the sediment was most recently exposed to sunlight during the latest part of the Early Pleistocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mas des Caves site at Lunel-Viel, Southern France, is a complex of several caves, dug in Miocene limestone, that have yielded a rich archaeo-palaeontological sequence attributed to the Middle Pleistocene with abundant vertebrates and lithic artefacts. The first caves (LV I, II and III), discovered in 1800, were excavated at the beginning of the 19th century [1] before falling into oblivion for over a century. The main cave is LV I when LV II and III are smaller subparallel galleries. In the early 1970s, research was conducted in main the gallery by E. Bonifay who discovered, as well an extension named LV IV and the natural entrance (sinkhole, doline) both completely closed now. Recently, a multidisciplinary approach has been set up (DRAC-SRA Occitanie) to contextualize the ancient collections with the recent ones and to allow a better understanding of the site formation, palaeoenvironmental and behavioural history of the animals and humans who lived there [2]. The previous chronology based on faunal elements yields important biomarkers (including new genus and species/subspecies) making Lunel-Viel a major Middle Pleistocene site in the European record. Among various dating techniques used in this study, trapped-charged methods such as combined ESR/U-Th and IRSL were applied on fossil tooth enamel and on feldspars respectively. The results obtained by both methods are in agreement and suggest a period of human occupation between 300 and 200 ka. This age range matches well with the composition of the faunal assemblage attributed to the second part of the Middle Pleistocene (biochronology) and which constrain the occupation to a cool/temperate and humid period which could be contemporaneous with the MIS9 or the beginning of MIS7 [3]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]