@article{cdf6a436b34740358b94eb0dbca3c7d2,
title = "Remains of Holocene giant pandas from Jiangdong Mountain (Yunnan, China) and their relevance to the evolution of quaternary environments in south-western China",
abstract = "Two subfossil partial skeletons of male giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) were recovered, along with remains of 16 other mammalian species, from a natural sinkhole on Jiangdong Mountain (south-western Yunnan, China). The panda and other mammalian bones from the sinkhole's upper chamber yielded tightly clustered accelerator mass spectrometry corrected radiocarbon ages of 8470-8250 yr BP, and the panda remains from the lower chamber were found to be 5025 ± 35 yr BP. The bones represent a natural accumulation of mostly large mammals (&30 kg), which had fallen accidentally into the sinkhole. The Jiangdong Mountain mammal assemblage comprises mostly obligate forest-dwellers such as the giant panda, Asian elephant and Sumatran rhinoceros, but the presence of the horse and gaur suggests a more open woodland habitat. Giant pandas were distributed widely in southern China during the Pleistocene, but are now restricted to dense stands of bamboo within temperate forests surrounding the Sichuan Basin. The evidence from Jiangdong Mountain indicates that suitable habitat for pandas extended west of the Salween River through the mid-Holocene. Rapid deforestation of the area in historical times is suggested by an accumulation of cave fill below the opening of the sinkhole containing pieces of an early to middle Ming Dynasty bowl.",
author = "Jablonski, {Nina G.} and J. Xueping and Liu Hong and L. Zheng and Flynn, {Lawrence J.} and L. Zhicai",
note = "Funding Information: We are grateful to the villagers of Jiangdong Mountain for their warm hospitality and logistical support of the expedition that made possible the recovery of the mammal bones from their local sinkhole. We thank Yang Shaoyong, known locally as Lao Jia, in particular for providing transport between Gudong Town and Jiangdong Mountain by pony train. Wang Jing and Wang Yaosheng of the cave exploration company cqoutdoor.com are thanked for their role in surveying the sinkhole and in providing the equipment and expertise necessary for its safe exploration by paleontologists. We are grateful to one anonymous reviewer and to Dr Christopher Bae for providing many useful and insightful comments, which led to the improvement of the final manuscript. Funding for the investigation of the Jiangdong Shan sinkhole was provided by a grant from the US National Science Foundation (DEB-0103795) to the California Academy of Sciences. Dong Lin is generously thanked for taking the photographs of the Jiangdong Shan fossils, Jennifer Kane for preparing the illustrations of the sinkhole complex and panda taphonomy, and George Chaplin for creating the panda distribution map. This paper represents Publication No. 66 of the China Natural History Project of the California Academy of Sciences.",
year = "2012",
month = oct,
doi = "10.1080/08912963.2011.640400",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "24",
pages = "527--536",
journal = "Historical Biology",
issn = "0891-2963",
publisher = "Taylor and Francis Ltd.",
number = "5",
}