DATED COOCCURRENCE OF HOMO-ERECTUS AND GIGANTOPITHECUS FROM THAM-KHUYEN CAVE, VIETNAM

Tham Khuyen Cave (Lang Son Province, northern Vietnam) is one of the m ore significant sites to yield fossil vertebrates In east Asia, During the mid-1960s, excavation in a suite of deposits produced important h ominoid dental remains of middle Pleistocene age, We undertake more ri gorous analyses of these sediments to understand the fluvial dynamics of Pleistocene cave infilling as they determine how skeletal elements accumulate within Tham Khuyen and other east Asian sites, Uranium/thor ium series analysis of speleothems brackets the Pleistocene chronology for breaching, infilling, and exhuming the regional paleokarst, Clast analysis indicates sedimentary constituents, Including hominoid teeth and cranial fragments, accumulated from very short distances and unde r low fluvial energy, Electron spin resonance analysis of vertebrate t ooth enamel and sediments shows that the main fossil-bearing suite (S1 -S3) was deposited about 475 thousand years ago, Among the hominoid te eth excavated from S1-S3, some represent Homo erectus and Gigantopithe cus blacki, Criteria are defined to differentiate these teeth from mor e numerous Pongo pygmaeus elements, The dated cooccurrence of Homo ere ctus and Gigantopithecus blacki at Tham Khuyen helps to establish the long co-existence of these two species throughout east Asia during the Early and Middle Pleistocene.