Sequence of mammalian fossils, including hominoid teeth, from the Bubing Basin caves, South China Wei Wang a , Richard Potts b, * , Yuan Baoyin c , Weiwen Huang d , Hai Cheng e , R. Lawrence Edwards e , Peter Ditchfield f a Faculty of Earth Sciences, China University of Geoscience, Wuhan, 430074; Natural History Museum of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nanning 530012, P.R. China b Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA c Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, P.R. China d Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, P.R. China e Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA f Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK Received 2 July 2005; accepted 6 October 2006 Abstract A Plio-Pleistocene to Holocene faunal sequence has been recovered from four carefully excavated caves in the Bubing Basin, adjacent to the larger Bose Basin of South China. The caves vary in elevation; we suggest that the higher caves were formed and filled with sediments prior to the lower caves. The highest deposits, which are from Mohui Cave, contain hominoid teeth and other fossilized remains of mammalian taxa most similar to late Pliocene and early Pleistocene faunas. Wuyun Cave (w50 m lower in elevation than Mohui) contains a late middle Pleistocene fauna, which is supported by U-series age constraints from 350 to 200 ka. Lower Pubu Cave (w23 m below Wuyun) is assigned to the late Pleistocene, while the Cunkong Cave (the lowest, w2 m lower elevation than Lower Pubu) preserves a Holocene fauna. The four faunal assemblages indicate species-level changes in Ailuropoda, Stegodon, and Sus, the appearance of Elephas, the local disap- pearance of Stegodon, and the migration of Equus hemionus to South China. These initial results of our work call into question the continued value of the Stegodon/Ailuropoda Fauna, a category long used to characterize the Pleistocene faunas of South China. Excavation of karstic caves of varying elevation within the basins of South China holds promise for defining local sequences of mammalian fossils that can be used to investigate faunal variations related to climate change, biogeographic events, and evolutionary change over the past two million years. Stable isotopic analysis of a small sample of mammalian teeth from Bubing Basin caves is consistent with 100% C 3 vegetation in the Bubing/ Bose region, with certain d 13 C values consistent with a canopied woodland or forest. A preliminary assessment of the hominoid teeth indicates the presence of diverse molar and premolar morphologies including dental remains of Gigantopithecus blacki and a sample with similarities to the teeth reported from Longgupo. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Bose; Fauna; Gigantopithecus; Mohui; Stable isotopes; Stegodon/Ailuropoda Fauna; U-series dating Introduction Although Quaternary fossil remains have long been known from the limestone caves of South China, systematic recovery of them has been rare, and the difficulty of determining age estimates for caves has meant that a sequential ordering of faunas has not yet been possible. As a result, Quaternary faunas of South China have been placed into the general * Corresponding author. Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA. E-mail addresses: wangwei@public.nn.gx.cn (W. Wang), pottsr@si.edu (R. Potts), huangweiwen@pa.ivpp.ac.cn (W. Huang), cheng021@umn.edu (H. Cheng), Edwar001@tc.umn.edu (R.L. Edwards), peter.ditchfield@ archaeology-research.oxford.ac.uk (P. Ditchfield). 0047-2484/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2006.10.003 Journal of Human Evolution 52 (2007) 370e379