Abstract: The fauna in Tianyuan Cave can be divided into two assemblages. The Upper Assemblage is typical of rodent gnawing marks, and contains more oriental elements. The Lower Assemblage contains the human fossils and almost completely free of gnawing.
The main deposits in Tianyuan Cave are composed of breccia with mild clay, which resembles that of Upper Cave in Zhoukoudian.
The Upper Cave deposits were composed of three units: Upper room , Lower Room and the Lower recess. Based on the analysis of the fauna, it seems that there is no difference among these three units. That’s to say, the Upper Cave Fauna is a uniform fauna. But the most interesting elements are without horizon record, such as Hystrix and Paguma as well as Elephas.
AMS 14C dating on mammalian bones gave the results: 34 —24 ka BP (Chen et al. , 1992). In chronology, they are correlated with the lower portion of the Tianyuan Cave deposits , which dated to 30 500—39 430 a B. P.
In the composition of fauna, Tianyuan Cave has 27 species in common with the Upper Cave fauna, which accounts for 6912 % of the total fauna. Additionally, both the Tianyuan Cave and Upper Cave are dominated by Cervus nippon; and they contain the earliest records of Aeretes melanopterus, as well as the latest Hystrix in North China. The fossils from the afore mentioned two sites are less fossilized.
Felis tigris, Lepus and Pseudaxis are the most abundant ones in the Upper Cave fauna. Paguma and Acinonyx jubatus are the rarest ones.
The Upper Cave fauna is characterized by complete skeletons. In the Lower recess complete skeletons of deer and bear were all piled together ( twenty-five deers).
Aeretes melanopterus, Arctonyx collaris, Paguma larvata and Capricornis represent the earliest appearance in North China.
Ochotona dauurica, Cricetinus ( Cricetulus) varians, Hystrix subcristata, Ursus thibetanus, Acinonyx jubatus, Cervus elaphus and Ovis in Tianyuan Cave and Upper Cave represent the latest record of these species in Beijing area.
The Tianyuan Cave and the Upper Cave faunas should be named after Cervus nippon-Hystrix- Aeretes.

Key words: Biostratigraphy; Tianyuan Cave; Upper Cave; Late Late Pleistocene; Zhoukoudian