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A reassessment of the age of the fauna from Cumberland Bone Cave, Maryland, (middle Pleistocene) using coupled U-series and electron spin resonance dating (ESR)
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A reassessment of the age of the fauna from Cumberland Bone Cave, Maryland, (middle Pleistocene) using coupled U-series and electron spin resonance dating (ESR)

Charles B Withnell, Renaud Joannes-Boyau and Christopher J Bell
Quaternary research, pp.1-12
16/06/2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2020.30
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A reassessment of the age of the fauna from Cumberland Bone Cave, Maryland, (middle Pleistocene) using coupled U-series and electron spin resonance dating (ESR)View
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Abstract

Cumberland Bone Cave Pleistocene Irvingtonian Dating U-series ESR dating Biochronology Archaeological Science Palaeontology (incl. Palynology)
The deposits in Cumberland Bone Cave (Allegany County, Maryland) preserved one of the most taxonomically diverse pre-radiocarbon Pleistocene faunas in the northeastern United States. The site has long been recognized as an important record of Pleistocene life in the region, but numerical age control for the fauna was never developed, and hypotheses for its age have been based upon biochronological assessments of the mammalian fauna. We used fossil teeth and preserved sediment housed in museum collections to obtain the first numerical age assessment of the fauna from Cumberland Bone Cave. Coupled U-series Electron Spin Resonance (US-ESR) was used to date fossil molars of the extinct peccary, Platygonus sp. The age estimates of two teeth gave ages of 722 ± 64 and 790 ± 53 ka. Our results are supported by previously unpublished paleomagnetic data generated by the late John Guilday, and by plotting length-width of the first molar (m1) of Ondatra (muskrats) from Cumberland Bone Cave on the chronocline of Ondatra molar evolution in North America. Our age assessments are surprisingly close to the age estimate previously proposed by Charles Repenning, who based his age on a somewhat complicated model of speciation and morphotype evolution among arvicoline rodents.

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