NEW LATE-PLEISTOCENE URANIUM-THORIUM AND ESR DATES FOR THE SINGA HOMINID (SUDAN)

The Singa (Sudan) calvaria has been interpreted previously as a termin al Pleistocene modem human fossil, perhaps related to the Bushman of S outhern Africa. Here we report new mass-spectrometric U-Th dates for t he calcrete deposit enclosing the fossil teeth and the calvaria itself and new electron spin resonance (ESR) dates for associated dental mat erials. The new data constrain the age of the hominid to at least 133 +/- 2 ka. Together with the preferred linear uptake (LU) ESR dates, th e U-Th data confirm that the intriguing mixture of modern and archaic characteristics in the Singa specimen date from isotope stage 6. Far f rom being a modern human fossil, it represents a rare example of an ar chaic African population which may have been ancestral to all modern H omo sapiens. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited