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New U/Th ages for Pleistocene megafauna deposits of southeastern Queensland,Australia
Authors:Gilbert J Price  Jian-xin Zhao  Yue-xing Feng  Scott A Hocknull
Institution:1. School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia;2. School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;3. Associated Scientific Limited, Australia
Abstract:Arguments over the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna have become particularly polarised in recent years. Causes for the extinctions are widely debated with climate change, human hunting and/or habitat modification, or a combination of those factors, being the dominant hypotheses. However, a lack of a spatially constrained chronology for many megafauna renders most hypotheses difficult to test. Here, we present several new U/Th dates for a series of previously undated, megafauna-bearing localities from southeastern Queensland, Australia. The sites were previously used to argue for or against various megafauna extinction hypotheses, and are the type localities for two now-extinct Pleistocene marsupials (including the giant koala, Phascolarctos stirtoni). The new dating allows the deposits to be placed in a spatially- and temporally constrained context relevant to the understanding of Australian megafaunal extinctions. The results indicate that The Joint (Texas Caves) megafaunal assemblage is middle Pleistocene or older (>292 ky); the Cement Mills (Gore) megafaunal assemblage is late Pleistocene or older (>53 ky); and the Russenden Cave Bone Chamber (Texas Caves) megafaunal assemblage is late Pleistocene (~55 ky). Importantly, the new results broadly show that the sites date prior to the hypothesised megafaunal extinction ‘window’ (i.e., ~30–50 ky), and therefore, cannot be used to argue exclusively for or against human/climate change extinction models, without first exploring their palaeoecological significance on wider temporal and spatial scales.
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