Quaternary Science Reviews最新文献

{"title":"New interpretation of the Rb/Sr ratio of the Ili loess, northeastern Central Asia","authors":"Yanping Wang ,&nbsp;Yougui Song ,&nbsp;Yue Li ,&nbsp;Hamid Gholami ,&nbsp;Haoru Wei ,&nbsp;Mengxiu Zeng ,&nbsp;Xiuling Chen ,&nbsp;Li Han","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109549","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109549","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rubidium/strontium (Rb/Sr) ratio in loess deposits is a widely recognized indicator of pedogenesis and East Asian Summer Monsoon intensity on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP). However, its significance in Central Asian loess remains underexplored. This study utilizes machine learning techniques, including Random Forest and Partial Least Squares Regression to investigate the factors influencing the Rb/Sr ratio in the Ili Basin, northeastern Central Asia (NCA). The results reveal a strong correlation between the Rb/Sr ratio and spring to early summer temperature, particularly in March, May, and June. Unlike in the CLP, where leaching primarily drives Rb/Sr variations, vegetation dynamics, which are influenced by temperatures from March to June, are the dominant influence in the Ili Basin. Based on these findings, a stacked Rb/Sr record was reconstructed, spanning the Last Glacial Period to the mid-Holocene. This record is closely similar to NCA temperature variations and related to glacial dynamics on orbital and millennial scales. The stacked Rb/Sr sequence indicates that spring to early summer temperatures in NCA were lowest during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 4 and MIS 3b, then increased to peak around 12.5 ka, and declined from the early to mid-Holocene. Furthermore, a significant warming trend from MIS 3a to MIS 2 is linked to changes in sea surface temperature in the northern tropical Indian Ocean, which influenced the Hadley cell. These findings position the Rb/Sr ratio as a novel paleotemperature proxy for loess in NCA, offering new insights into regional paleoenvironmental dynamics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"368 ","pages":"Article 109549"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144748623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Late quaternary environmental change in eastern Beringia","authors":"Alistair J. Monteath ,&nbsp;Mary E. Edwards ,&nbsp;Duane Froese ,&nbsp;Lesleigh Anderson ,&nbsp;Benjamin V. Gaglioti ,&nbsp;Scott L. Cocker ,&nbsp;Julie Brigham-Grette ,&nbsp;Matthew J. Wooller ,&nbsp;Bruce Finney ,&nbsp;Mark B. Abbott","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109527","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109527","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Eastern Beringia (Alaska and western Yukon) is an extensive, high-latitude region of North America that remained largely unglaciated throughout the Quaternary. Consequently, its sedimentary deposits preserve long-term environmental records that have intrigued scientists for nearly a century. Recent advances in palaeoecological proxies and dating methods have proved critical in addressing long-standing questions about regional late Quaternary environmental change. At the same time, they have led to new and sometimes controversial hypotheses. This review covers recent discoveries and unresolved questions focused on the period 57,000–10,000 calendar years before C.E. 1950 (cal yr BP).&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The middle Wisconsin interstadial (57,000–30,000 cal yr BP) was a period of relative warmth in eastern Beringia, compared with the late Wisconsin (30,000–14,000 cal yr BP). Early in the interstadial occasional &lt;em&gt;Picea&lt;/em&gt; woodland was present amongst widespread shrub tundra. Palaeoecological, sedimentary and isotopic data indicate that climate was cooler and drier than the Holocene, with high rates of aeolian activity. Megafauna typically associated with the ‘mammoth steppe’ ecosystem (woolly mammoth [&lt;em&gt;Mammuthus primigenius&lt;/em&gt;], horse [&lt;em&gt;Equus&lt;/em&gt;] and steppe-bison [&lt;em&gt;Bison priscus&lt;/em&gt;]) were present in some abundance.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The transition towards late Wisconsin cold-stage conditions (35,000–30,000 cal yr BP) coincided with the establishment of the Bering Land Bridge and featured expansion of spatially varied, herbaceous vegetation, sometimes associated with deep active layers. Sedimentary DNA (&lt;em&gt;seda&lt;/em&gt;DNA) and macrofossil evidence show vegetation was not a prairie-like grassland, and the term “steppe-tundra” is a better descriptor. Permafrost pore-ice isotopic (δ&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt;O) records suggest a step change in one or more climate drivers ca. 30,000 cal yr BP, by which time steppe-tundra was established across eastern Beringia. It remains uncertain whether &lt;em&gt;Picea&lt;/em&gt; survived cold-stage conditions within isolated refugia, or whether it recolonized from south of the Laurentide-Cordilleran ice sheets. Genetic data suggest that &lt;em&gt;Picea&lt;/em&gt; probably survived &lt;em&gt;in situ&lt;/em&gt;; however, there is no definitive fossil evidence to support this.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The end-Pleistocene transition from steppe-tundra to shrub tundra began ca. 15,000 cal yr BP and took place within decades at local scales. The expansion of woody taxa coincided with rising sea levels, reduced sea-ice extent and an abrupt shift in atmospheric circulation that enhanced precipitation. During this time, Earth's orbital configuration caused high early-summer temperatures and strong seasonality, creating growing conditions very different from today. The vegetation consisted of &lt;em&gt;Salix&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Betula&lt;/em&gt; shrub tundra with open areas of herbs and graminoids. During the deglacial warming trend, the Younger Dryas oscillation (12,800–11,700 cal yr BP) was variably","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"368 ","pages":"Article 109527"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144738370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Variations of phytoplankton productivity and community evidenced by sterol records in Lake Tuofengling, a crater lake in northeast China, during the last 25,000 years","authors":"Yao Wang ,&nbsp;Yang You ,&nbsp;Weiwei Sun ,&nbsp;Enfeng Liu ,&nbsp;Zhenyu Ni ,&nbsp;Xianqiang Meng ,&nbsp;Enlou Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109551","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109551","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Knowledge regarding phytoplankton productivity and community structures under past warming scenarios is crucial for assessing the responses of aquatic ecosystems to global warming. This study presents high-resolution sterol records from Lake Tuofengling, a crater lake in northeast China, offering new insights into the evolution of lake productivity and algal community since the Last Glacial Maximum. The sedimentary record reveals abundant sterols, including cholesterol, brassicasterol, stigmasterol, sitosterol, and dinosterol, which serve as valuable paleolimnological proxies. A significant decline in the sitosterol/stigmasterol ratio since the Bølling-Allerød interstadial indicates a substantial increase in autochthonous contributions, coinciding with rising lake levels. A notable increase of the productivity of dinoflagellates relative to diatoms occurred around 10.5 cal ka BP, as indicated by sharp decrease in biogenic silica content and increase in dinosterol/sitosterol. This ecological shift was likely driven by changes in growing season temperatures and nutrient availability. The period between ∼6–4.2 cal ka BP was marked by significantly higher sterol abundances, indicating elevated lake productivity that was probably linked to increased precipitation during the mid-Holocene. Subsequently, around 4.2 cal ka BP, there was a sudden decrease in sterol concentrations and corresponding lake primary productivity, which can be ascribed to a sensitive response of the lake ecosystem to the 4.2-ka millennial event. Since approximately 3 cal ka BP, intensified human activities and increased dust deposition in northern China have significantly impacted the lake's ecological dynamics, resulting in high-amplitude fluctuations in sterol concentrations and a gradual increase in abundance of brassicasterol relative to dinosterol. The observed decoupling between diatom-dinoflagellate relative abundances and overall lake productivity demonstrates the complex responses of aquatic ecosystems to both natural and anthropogenic environmental changes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"368 ","pages":"Article 109551"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144738369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Relative summer temperature changes from glacial fluctuations in the Scoresby Sund region, Central East Greenland, during late-glacial time","authors":"Meredith A. Kelly ,&nbsp;Thomas V. Lowell ,&nbsp;Brenda L. Hall ,&nbsp;Laura B. Levy ,&nbsp;Colby A. Smith ,&nbsp;Katherine Salamido ,&nbsp;Roseanne Schwartz ,&nbsp;Jennifer A. Howley","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109531","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109531","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding climate conditions in the mid-to-high-latitude North Atlantic region during late-glacial time can provide valuable information to test hypotheses concerning the mechanisms of climate change that ended the last glacial period. Glaciers (particularly mountain glaciers) are sensitive recorders of summer temperature change because of its influence on the ablation season, snowline elevation and, hence, glacier length. Here, we develop a record of glacial fluctuations in the Scoresby Sund region in Central East Greenland and use these data to infer the timing and pattern of summer temperature changes in the mid-to-high-latitude North Atlantic region. We present 64 new ¹⁰Be ages of glacial landforms and remap and recalculate an additional 65 ¹⁰Be ages from prior work in the region. Even with boulders with inherited nuclides in some of the datasets, a two-step pattern of glacial fluctuations is apparent, with an outer moraine dating to ∼14.0–12.8 ka, an inner moraine dating to ∼11.7–11.3 ka, and ice retreat in the time between moraine deposition. A comparison of these data with ¹⁰Be chronologies of mountain glacier fluctuations in Northeast Greenland, Svalbard, Norway and Scotland, shows a consistent pattern throughout the mid-to-high-latitude North Atlantic region of summer cooling and warming during late-glacial time.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"367 ","pages":"Article 109531"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144723299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Significant lake acidification recorded in northeast China during the warm and humid mid-Holocene","authors":"Hai Luo ,&nbsp;Luo Wang ,&nbsp;Jie Li ,&nbsp;Jiaoyang Zhang ,&nbsp;Jingkang Wang ,&nbsp;Wenyu He ,&nbsp;Luyuan Zhang ,&nbsp;Patrick Rioual ,&nbsp;Guoqiang Chu ,&nbsp;Qingzhen Hao","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109546","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109546","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Acidification is a major ecological problem in a large number of lakes around the world. In recent decades, research has primarily focused on the effects of human-induced acid deposition on lake ecosystems. However, there has been relatively little research on how changes in the natural environment influence the acid-base balance of lakes. In this study, we tracked the changes of lake acidity in the past ∼10,000 years by using the records of sedimentary diatoms in Buteha Lake, a volcanic lake in northeast China. We also compare the historical changes in lake acidity with variations in vegetation and aeolian activity recorded in the same core and regional data to evaluate the relationships among lake acidity, vegetation changes, and dust deposition. The diatom results show that during the mid-Holocene (8200-4500 cal yr BP), acid-tolerant diatoms (<em>Eunotia</em> species) were very abundant. This pattern was followed by a gradual decline during the late Holocene, with a slight increase observed in recent decades. Proliferation of acid-tolerant diatoms indicate that severe lake acidification occurred during the mid-Holocene. The trend of lake acidification closely resembles the regional vegetation changes, contrasting with the intensity of aeolian activity. Our results suggest that lake acidification in the mid-Holocene was not directly linked to change in temperature and/or precipitation, but rather was driven by the balance between acidic and alkaline substance inputs. Specifically, climate warming and stronger monsoons enhanced terrestrial vegetation, increasing acidic humic substance inputs to the lake, while decreased alkaline dust deposition synergistically exacerbated acidification. This study provides a scientific basis for predicting the future development of lake environment in northeast China, and offers valuable insights for environmental research on natural lakes acidification globally. We predict that if global warming continues and precipitation increases in the future, more lakes, especially those that depend on dust inputs to maintain their acid neutralizing capacity, may experience acidification due to the decrease of alkaline dust deposition and the increase of acidic humic substances input caused by vegetation expansion.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"367 ","pages":"Article 109546"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144723301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Holocene environments and the forest dynamics enigma in the arid Altai highlands","authors":"N. Rudaya ,&nbsp;O. Kuzmina ,&nbsp;L. Frolova ,&nbsp;L. Nazarova ,&nbsp;N. Nigmatullin ,&nbsp;L. Syrykh ,&nbsp;Y. Vnukovskaya ,&nbsp;X. Cao ,&nbsp;S. Zhilich ,&nbsp;V. Novikov ,&nbsp;S. Karachurina ,&nbsp;A. Darin","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109548","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109548","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The objective of this study is to reconstruct the ecological history of the arid highlands of Central Asia during the Holocene. The study of Lake Khindiktig-Khol, located at the watershed between the outflow into the Arctic Ocean and the closed Central Asia, and its surrounding environment provides valuable insights into the ecological and climatic history of the area. By analyzing multiple paleoenvironmental proxies, pollen, chironomids, cladocerans, and non-pollen palynomorphs, this research has reconstructed the complex interplay between climate, vegetation, biodiversity and aquatic ecosystems over the past 11.4 ka. Our findings, in accordance with numerous other paleoreconstructions based on various proxies, reveal that the early Holocene was characterized by cold and arid conditions, with limited forest cover and low biodiversity. However, conifers such as <em>Pinus sibirica</em>, <em>Picea obovata</em>, and <em>Larix sibirica</em> were present in the region, even at elevations above the modern treeline, suggesting that moisture alone was not the sole limiting factor for forest development.</div><div>The mid-Holocene (approximately 7.5–3 ka BP) marked a period of increased humidity and warmth, often referred to as the Holocene climatic optimum. During this time, forest cover expanded, and biodiversity reached its peak, as evidenced by the dominance of cold deciduous and evergreen coniferous biomes in the pollen record. The lake ecosystem also responded to these favorable conditions, with increased productivity and the establishment of diverse aquatic communities<strong>.</strong> However, by the late Holocene, forest cover in the region gradually declined, culminating in the near-treeless landscape seen today. This shift was likely driven by a combination of cooling temperatures, permafrost expansion, and increased waterlogging—all of which hindered tree growth. The disappearance of forests in the late Holocene remains a topic of debate, but evidence suggests that permafrost expansion and waterlogging may play a significant role. While human activity in the late Holocene may have contributed to local deforestation, the widespread absence of trees in areas that are now uninhabited points to natural climatic and environmental changes as the primary drivers. These findings provide crucial insights into the long-term dynamics of high-altitude ecosystems and their responses to climatic shifts, offering valuable perspectives for predicting future changes in similar environments under current global warming trends. The unresolved questions about early Holocene conifer persistence highlight important knowledge gaps in our understanding of alpine vegetation resilience.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"367 ","pages":"Article 109548"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144713875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sediments in small endorheic basins as regional paleoenvironmental archives across a Mediterranean to arid transect","authors":"S. Vainer ,&nbsp;J. Roskin ,&nbsp;M. Markin ,&nbsp;I. Raish ,&nbsp;N. Taha ,&nbsp;N. Porat ,&nbsp;R. Bookman","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109530","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109530","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In areas where environmental settings are changing across relatively small distances, using a limited number of proxies for paleoenvironmental interpretations may obscure distinctive responses in each environmental niche and the regional effects of climate change. Here we demonstrate the application of sedimentological, geochemical, and luminescence-based proxies in three small endorheic basins, located along a sharp climatic gradient of 150 km in the southern Levant. This approach yields a regional paleoenvironmental framework corresponding to three major established depositional phases, while the local response during each of these phases differs between sites. The earliest phase, coinciding with MIS 3 (∼57-29 ka), is marked by humid conditions leading to weathering and soil formation towards the paleoshore and loess washdown into a shallow waterbody at the southern, currently arid, edge of the studied transect. The uncomfortably overlaying deposits (∼20-6.5 ka) capture a phase of environmental instability, with fluctuating sea levels, southwesterly aeolian sand influx, and the establishment of a coastal wetland environment. The last stage began around 6.5 ka, with continuous accumulation in localized coastal paludal environments and the stabilization of Mediterranean atmospheric circulation. This stability was interrupted by distinct second-order variations in sedimentation resulting from short-term climatic perturbations. Larger environmental instability is seen at the southern tip of the transect during the middle to late Holocene. This spatial difference is attributed to decreasing Mediterranean-derived humidity coupled with the influence of southerly atmospheric systems, resulting in event-based deposition of recycled sediment.</div><div>These records can provide a regional framework to study how distinct environmental settings capture variations in environmental forcing through allochthonous and autochthonous processes. Such settings include the distance to sediment sources, location along atmospheric trajectories, and the geographical context. The decoupling of site-related effects from the compiled regional trend allows tracking the responses to established climatic trends, underscoring the importance of studying spatially spread and relatively temporally continuous archives.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"367 ","pages":"Article 109530"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144694433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Middle Palaeolithic Human occupations, cultural behaviours and demographic dynamics during MIS 5a to late 3 in the Bawa Yawan Rockshelter, Kermanshah, West-Central Zagros Mountains","authors":"Saman H. Guran","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109523","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109523","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite many years of research into the Middle Palaeolithic in the Zagros Mountains, numerous aspects of this period have not yet been sufficiently investigated. The topics of Middle Palaeolithic's cultural behavioures, temporal changes, chronology, and the nature of the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic in this region have led to various opinions and debates. Three seasons of archaeological excavations at the Bawa Yawan Rockshelter, located in the west-central Zagros, have uncovered a continuous stratigraphic sequence spanning from the Middle to the Epipalaeolithic periods. The site yielded in situ Neanderthal remains along with a substantial assemblage of lithic and faunal materials. The findings suggest a relatively homogeneous Mousterian lithic trajectory throughout the Middle Palaeolithic period, with slight variations likely reflecting differences in hunting strategies. Furthermore, these data indicate a cyclical pattern in population size dynamics, likely in response to climatic variations during the late Marine Isotope Stage 5a to the middle of 3. The data reveal that the Neanderthals, after a relatively substantial period in late MIS 5, experienced a demographic stagnation in MIS 4. The same data shows that their population grew significantly just before extinction around 45,000 to 40,000 years ago.</div><div>This article represents a step forward in understanding human evolution during the Late Pleistocene in the Zagros Mountains, within the territory of Southwestern Asia.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"367 ","pages":"Article 109523"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144687013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Newly discovered Late Paleolithic sites in the southeastern margin of the Badain Jaran Desert, northwest China","authors":"Lu Teng ,&nbsp;Xuefeng Sun ,&nbsp;Hui Liu ,&nbsp;Na Zhao ,&nbsp;Shuangwen Yi ,&nbsp;Feng Li ,&nbsp;Xiaoqi Guo ,&nbsp;Yuan Yao ,&nbsp;Yinghua Wang ,&nbsp;Christopher J. Bae ,&nbsp;Huayu Lu","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109542","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109542","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Badain Jaran Desert (BDJL) is the second largest desert in China and is largely uninhabitable today. However, a number of Paleolithic cultural remains have been found in and around the BDJL, suggestive of earlier occupations by human foragers. Unfortunately, most of these artifacts were surface collected and lack reliable radiometric dates, making it difficult to further understand when prehistoric peoples entered the desert and how they survived once there. As a result of recent multidisciplinary fieldwork, eleven new lithic sites (BDJL1-11) were discovered in the southeastern margin of the BDJL. Four of these were initially excavated and found to contain buried Paleoliths, and the other seven sites had stone tools distributed on the surface. The stone artifact collections include microblades, small flakes, and scrapers, representing typical stone tool types of the Late Paleolithic in northern China. We applied Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) ¹⁴C dating to the buried sites’ stratigraphy and OSL dating to the underlying stratigraphy of the surface sites. The results suggest that: human foragers obtained water and possibly hunted near small lakes that were present in interdune basins (BDJL1-2) after 10.1 ka; humans settled in the rockshelter (BDJL3) and the cave (BDJL4) in the mountain basin around 5.9 ka and between 6.4 and 6.2 cal ka BP, separately; foragers hunted and used water in the proluvial fan margin with relatively favorable water and vegetation conditions (BDJL5-11) between approximately 9.3 ka and 7.6 ka, even later; humans collected stone materials and possibly used water along seasonal streams at the proluvial fan outlet (MDLS1-7) after approximately 7.3 ka. Temperature and precipitation simulated by Trace-21ka indicate that the climate of the BDJL was relatively warm and humid during the Early and Middle Holocene. The combination of better moisture conditions and increasing population density as evidenced by the increased number of microblade sites in the Yellow River Basin likely drove the migration and dispersal of human populations into the desert. This study reveals the diversity in resource utilization and the relative abundance of different activities by Late Paleolithic hunter-gatherers during the Early and Middle Holocene in the currently resource-scarce BDJL. The resource exploitation patterns of the BDJL human foraging groups provide new insights into prehistoric human adaptations to desert regions in northwestern China.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"367 ","pages":"Article 109542"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144687014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hydrological variability in the Black Sea region during the last 670,000 years recorded in multi-proxy speleothem records from northern Türkiye","authors":"F. Held ,&nbsp;H. Cheng ,&nbsp;R.L. Edwards ,&nbsp;T. Kipfer ,&nbsp;O. Tüysüz ,&nbsp;K. Koç ,&nbsp;S. Affolter ,&nbsp;D. Fleitmann","doi":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109534","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109534","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Changes in the hydrological balance of the Black Sea play a crucial role in the hydrological cycle and exert a strong influence on the isotopic composition of precipitation in the Black Sea region. However, the timing, duration and driving factors of hydrological shifts in the Black Sea region remain poorly constrained. Here, we present several new speleothem records from Sofular Cave in northern Türkiye to reconstruct hydroclimate fluctuations during the last 670,000 years, thereby expanding the previously published discontinuous isotope records. Stable oxygen isotopes of speleothem calcite (δ¹⁸O_ca) reflect variations in the isotopic composition of the Black Sea surface water, providing information on the timing, origin and duration of Black Sea water exchange with the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas, inflow of meltwater from the Eurasian ice sheet (EIS), and configuration of the Black Sea paleodrainage basin and EIS during the last 670,000 years. The comparison between stable water isotopes of modern precipitation and paleo-precipitation trapped inside speleothem fluid inclusions demonstrates that the modern Local Meteoric Water Line (LMWL) is representative for the isotopic composition of precipitation during glacial and interglacial climate conditions. Furthermore, speleothem fluid inclusion deuterium excess values were higher during glacial periods compared to interglacial periods, which is most likely related to atmospheric changes affecting the evaporative conditions above the moisture source.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20926,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Science Reviews","volume":"367 ","pages":"Article 109534"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144687012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}