U-series dating of Quaternary climatic and archaeological indicators

Abstract

Since the development of mass spectrometric techniques for U-series dating some 20 years ago, fundamental breakthroughs have been made in Quaternary climatic and archaeological studies. In this presentation I will summarise research highlights in U-series dating of palaeoclimatic and archaeological indicators achieved at the University of Queensland over the past five years. These include speleothem records from Australia and China covering the Last Interglacial, the Last Deglaciation and the Holocene periods, coral records in the South China Sea and other sites and Homo erectus and Homo sapiens sites in China.