Constraints on the ages of Mid-Pleistocene megafaunal assemblages from southern Australia by U/Th dating of associated speleothems

Terrestrial faunal deposits have traditionally been difficult to date where their ages are beyond the limit of the radiocarbon dating technique i.e.> 40, 000 yrs. The lack of accurate ages for faunal deposits of mid to early Pleistocene in age, a time characterised by large scale fluctuations in global climates and the colonization of Australia by humans, has been a limiting factor in many palaeontological and palaeoecological studies. The current work is an attempt at placing age constraints on some mid-Pleistocene faunal deposits occurring in the limestone caves of the Naracoorte region (Wells et al., 1984). The intimate association of these deposits with cave formation (flowstones and stalagmites) provides an opportunity to date the emplacement of the sediment and fossils. This study follows on from earlier work (Ayliffe and Veeh, 1986) and employs the Thermal Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (TIMS) technique to date speleothems to high precision