The Late Pleistocene Duoi U’Oi cave in northern Vietnam: palaeontology, sedimentology, taphonomy and palaeoenvironments

Abstract

This paper describes new fossil materials recovered at the Duoi U’Oi site, in December 2003, by a Vietnamese-French-Japanese team. The Duoi U’Oi cave is located in Man Duc village, 25 km of Hoà Binh city in northern Vietnam. It belongs to a karstic network developed in a dark grey micritic marine limestone dated from the Lower to the Middle Triassic. The sedimentary fill produced a rich mammalian fauna, essentially composed of isolated teeth of middle- to large-sized mammals (Artiodactyla, Perissodactyla, Proboscidea, Carnivora, Rodentia, Primates), and characteristic of Late Pleistocene. The results of the Duoi U’Oi fieldwork are of great interest for the following reasons: (1) the biochronological age of the fauna is consistent with 230Th/ 234U/ 238U dating from the calcitic floors (66±3 ka). The Duoi U’Oi fauna is thus the oldest well-dated modern fauna known for the Southeast Asian mainland; (2) in terms of sedimentology, the analysis of the formation of the fossiliferous breccia and that of the processes of deposits shows a close relation between the karstic deposits inside the cave and the deposits in the alluvial terraces. The observation of three levels of alluvial terraces associated with three caves situated at 62, 10 and 3 m above the present alluvial plain suggests that exokarstic and endokarstic sediments evolved together; (3) in terms of palaeobiogeography, Duoi U’Oi is the continental fauna showing the strongest resemblance with the Late Pleistocene faunas from Indonesian islands (Punung, Gunung Dawung, Lida Ajer, Sibrambang and Djambu caves); this implies that, at the time of Duoi U’Oi, ca 70 ka, the Sundaland was mainly characterised by faunas of modern aspect; (4) the analysis of major taphonomic factors that led to the mammal assemblage reveals a combination of selective agents (selective role of predators and porcupines, selective destruction of age classes for some species, selective preservation of fossils due to the deposition processes in the karstic network), which contribute to the poor representation of the diversity of the fauna; no arguments show that humans, present at Duoi U’Oi, might have a possible role in the taphonomic process; (5) the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction based on the composition of the faunal assemblage suggests a forested area and some open habitats, under warm and humid conditions.