The deposits in Cumberland Bone Cave (Allegany County, Maryland) preserved one of the most taxonomically diverse pre-radiocarbon Pleistocene faunas in the northeastern United States. The site has long been recognized as an important record of Pleistocene life in the region, but numerical age control for the fauna was never developed, and hypotheses for its age have been based upon biochronological assessments of the mammalian fauna. We used fossil teeth and preserved sediment housed in museum collections to obtain the first numerical age assessment of the fauna from Cumberland Bone Cave. Coupled U-series Electron Spin Resonance (US-ESR) was used to date fossil molars of the extinct peccary, Platygonus sp. The age estimates of two teeth gave ages of 722 ± 64 and 790 ± 53 ka. Our results are supported by previously unpublished paleomagnetic data generated by the late John Guilday, and by plotting length-width of the first molar (m1) of Ondatra (muskrats) from Cumberland Bone Cave on the chronocline of Ondatra molar evolution in North America. Our age assessments are surprisingly close to the age estimate previously proposed by Charles Repenning, who based his age on a somewhat complicated model of speciation and morphotype evolution among arvicoline rodents.

中文翻译：

---

使用耦合的 U 系列和电子自旋共振测年 (ESR) 重新评估马里兰州坎伯兰骨洞 (中更新世) 的动物群年龄

坎伯兰骨洞（马里兰州阿勒格尼县）的矿床保存了美国东北部分类学上最多样化的前放射性碳更新世动物群之一。该遗址长期以来一直被认为是该地区更新世生命的重要记录，但从未开发出对动物群的数字年龄控制，对其年龄的假设是基于对哺乳动物群落的生物年代学评估。我们使用博物馆藏品中保存的牙齿化石和沉积物来获得坎伯兰骨洞动物群的第一个数字年龄评估。耦合 U 系列电子自旋共振 (US-ESR) 用于确定已灭绝野猪的臼齿化石的年代，鸭嘴兽sp。两颗牙齿的年龄估计值分别为 722 ± 64 和 790 ± 53 ka。我们的结果得到了已故 John Guilday 生成的先前未发表的古地磁数据的支持，并通过绘制第一磨牙 (m1) 的长宽图来支持我们的研究结果。翁达特尔来自坎伯兰骨洞的一只（麝鼠）翁达特尔北美的臼齿进化。我们的年龄评估结果与 Charles Repenning 先前提出的年龄估计值惊人地接近，他的年龄基于一个有点复杂的啮齿动物物种形成和形态型进化模型。