The giant merger remnant galaxy NGC 1316 (Fornax A) is an ideal probe for
studying the long-term effects of a past major merger on star cluster systems,
given its spectroscopically derived merger age of ~3 Gyr which we reported in a
recent paper. Here we present new ground-based, large-area optical and near-IR
imaging of star clusters in NGC 1316, complemented with deep HST/WFPC2 imaging.
We find that the optical-near-IR colours and luminosities of the brightest ~10
clusters in NGC 1316 are consistent with those of intermediate-age (2-3 Gyr)
populations. Unlike `normal' giant ellipticals, the B-I colour distribution of
clusters in NGC 1316 is not clearly bimodal. However, the luminosity functions
(LFs) of the blue and red parts of the cluster colour distribution are
different: The red cluster LF is well represented by a power law with index
-1.2 +/- 0.3, extending to about 1.5 mag brighter (in B) than those of typical
giant ellipticals. In contrast, the shape of the blue cluster LF is consistent
with that of `normal' spiral and elliptical galaxies. We conclude that the star
cluster system of NGC 1316 is a combination of a population of age ~3 Gyr
having roughly solar metallicity and a population of old, metal-poor clusters
which probably belonged to the pre-merger galaxies. After the 3 Gyr old,
metal-rich clusters fade to an age of 10 Gyr, they will form a red `peak' in a
bimodal cluster colour distribution. This `red peak' will have a colour
consistent with that found in `normal, old' giant ellipticals of the same
galaxy luminosity (taking age dimming into account). These features of the star
cluster system of NGC 1316 are fully consistent with scenarios for forming
`normal' giant elliptical galaxies through gas-rich mergers at look-back times
\ga 10 Gyr.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX format, figures included using psfig.sty. Accepted by
MNRAS. Abstract below is abridged (full abstract in paper). Used 8-bit
mapping to limit size of figures (24-bit mapping in MNRAS paper
