On the age of Border Cave 5 human mandible

An enamel fragment from the Border Cave 5 specimen was analysed with non-destructive ESR combined with laser ablation ICP-MS for uranium profiling. We obtained an age of 74 5 ka which fits exactly into the chronological framework that has been previously established for Border Cave by a variety of dating techniques. The result lays at rest the view that BC5 could be of Iron Age, as was implied by (Journal of Human Evolution, 31 (1996) 499) based on nitrogen contents and infra-red splitting factors. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.