Ages and metallicities of five intermediate-age star clusters projected towards the Small Magellanic Cloud

Colour-magnitude diagrams are presented for the first time for L32, L38, K2 8 (L43), K44 (L68) and L116, which are clusters projected on to the outer p arts of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The photometry was carried out in the Washington system C and T-1 filters, allowing the determination of age s by means of the magnitude difference between the red giant clump and the main-sequence turn-off, and metallicities from the red giant branch locus. The clusters have ages in the range 2-6 Gyr, and metallicities in the range - 1.65 < [Fe/H] < -1.10, increasing the sample of intermediate-age cluster s in the SMC. L116, the outermost cluster projected on to the SMC, is a for eground cluster, and somewhat closer to us than the Large Magellanic Cloud. Our results, combined with those for other clusters in the literature, sho w epochs of sudden chemical enrichment in the age-metallicity plane, which favour a bursting star formation history as opposed to a continuous one for the SMC.