Optical dating of flowstone and silty carbonate-rich sediments from Panxian Dadong Cave, Guizhou, southwestern China

Panxian Dadong Cave located in the western Guizhou is a very important Paleolithic site in China. At this site bone and stone artifacts, human teeth and mammalian fossils (known as Ailuropoda-Stegodon fauna) were found, and the site was previously dated to 120-300 ka using ESR/uranium-series methods. In this study, we successfully extracted fine quartz grains from flowstone and silty carbonate-rich sediments in the excavated area. The quartz extracts displayed excellent luminescence properties, and satisfied the SAR (single-aliquot regenerative dose method) acceptance criteria. The sensitivity-corrected OSL signals are not saturated at a dose up to about 1400 Gy. The cultural unit was OSL dated to 190-300 ka, corresponding to MISs 7-8. The flowstone deposits overlying the cultural unit were determined to be 13-190 ka and the silty carbonate-rich sediments underlying the cultural unit to be 300-360 ka. The optical ages are in general agreement with the coupled ESR/U-series and U-series ages.