Late Pleistocene fire in the Ili Basin, Central Asia, and its potential links to paleoclimate change and human activities

摘要

Evidence of late Pleistocene fire activity in Central Asia is important for understanding the underlying processes and controls of fire. Here, two microcharcoal records from two separate loess sections covering the last similar to 70 thousand years (kyr) in the Ili Basin are reported. The results show that total microcharcoal concentrations are similar in both records and are correlated with insolation, indicating consistent basin-wide fire trends related to moisture changes driven by insolation; in addition, two anomalous fire events were identified at 45-35 ka and 6-0 ka. We argue that these events are possibly related to ancient human activities, rather than to pure natural factors such as sedimentation, wind, taphonomic change or climate change.