AMS C-14 DATES FOR EXTINCT LEMURS FROM CAVES IN THE ANKARANA MASSIF, NORTHERN MADAGASCAR

An extensive late Quaternary fauna, including many extinct giant lemur s, has been collected recently in a 110+-km system of caves in the Ank arana Massif of northern Madagascar. AMS C-14 dates for the acid-insol uble (collagen/gelatin) fraction of bones of the giant lemur Megaladap is (26,150 +/- 400 and 12,760 +/- 70 yr B.P.) confirm its presence in the area during the late Pleistocene and provide the first Pleistocene C-14 ages from bones of the extinct megafauna of the island. The firs t date from bones of the recently described extinct Babakotia radofila i (4400 +/- 60 yr B.P.) shows that it was present in northern Madagasc ar in mid-Holocene times. A comparatively recent age of 1020 +/- 50 yr B.P. for the extinct Archaeolemur indicates survival of this genus fo r at least a millennium after the first direct evidence for humans in Madagascar, This suggests that the island's ''extinction window'' may have represented a longer time span than would have been expected unde r the Blitzkrieg model of late Quaternary extinctions. A mid-Holocene age (4560 +/- 70 yr B.P.) for a bone sample of the small extant lemur Hapalemur simus indicates that the disappearance of this now-restricte d species from the Ankarana occurred after this date. New data from th e Ankarana and other sites on the island add to the consensus that maj or biotic changes occurred on Madagascar in the late Holocene. (C) 199 5 University of Washington.