Chronology of the stratum containing the skull of the Dali Man

Abstract

The field investigations of geomorphology and Quaternary sediment sequences show that the sediment stratigraphic profile containing the skull of the Homo sapiens Daliensis (Dali Man) at Tianshuigou trench, Jiefang Village (109° 44′E, 34°52′N), Dali County, Shaanxi Province, is composed of the loess-paleosol sequence, 17.3 m thick, in the upper part, and the alluvial silts, fine sands and sandy gravels interbedded, 15.4 m thick, in the lower part. There are the well developed layers L1, S1, L2 and S2 in the loess-paleosol sequence of the profile, which are comparable; to those of the Luochuan loess section on the basis of magnetic succeptibility measurements and IRSL dating of the loess samples. An alluvial gravel layer, where the skull of the Dali Man was discovered, is in 13 m beneath the bottom of paleosol S2, implying that, the age of the Dali Man must be older than about 247 kaBP when the paleosol S2 began to be developed. The samples of mammal animal tooth and shell fossils from the gravel layer containing the skull of the Dali Man have been dated by uranium series and ESR methods respectively. Based on the multiple dating results and the stratigraphic chronology, the age of the Dali Man, therefore, would be estimated as older than 250 kaBP and younger than 350 kaBP, and reasonably estimated as 260–300 kaBP.