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Pollen evidence from a 25.3-m-long section (~2.2–0.41 Ma) in the Jinyuan Cave, Liaodong Peninsula, indicates that from the Early–Middle Pleistocene, the climate showed a trend of gradual cooling and drying, with obvious fluctuations. The vegetation was represented by temperate broad-leaved forest from ca. 2.2 to 1.87 Ma, suggesting a relatively warm and humid climate. The period from 1.87 to 1.82 Ma witnessed an obviously cold and dry event, and coniferous and broadleaved mixed forests developed from 1.82 to 1.76 Ma. From 1.52 Ma to the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), the vegetation was dominated by forest steppe, and the climate became cold in the later stage. During the 0.59–0.41 Ma period, steppes developed, and the climate was cold and arid. At the same time, with climate variation, the faunal communities also changed obviously and co-evolved with vegetation types. In the early stage of the Early Pleistocene, the warm and humid climate was related to the presence of a wide range of thermophilous animals. From 1.7 to 1.5 Ma, the transition from forest to forest steppe might have promoted the emergence of certain grassland-adapted animals. During the MPT, grassland-adapted animals became dominant due to the flourishing forest steppe vegetation. The Middle Pleistocene witnessed the expansion of steppe and animals adapted to the arid grassland environment at that time.

Chronological sequences of Quaternary terrestrial mammalian faunas can provide important information about the evolutionary history of mammals, regional biostratigraphy and paleoenvironmental changes. Here we report the results of studies of a thick, nearly-continuous sedimentary sequence from Jinyuan Cave, in Liaoning Province, northeast China; the sequences contains four mammalian faunas ranging in age from the Late Pliocene to the late Middle Pleistocene. Detailed paleomagnetic and U-series age determinations date the upper unit of the sedimentary sequence to ~2.2–0.3 Ma. The results suggest that cave development and infilling were closely associated with the tectonic evolution of the Bohai Basin, including the subsidence of the basin and the uplift of the surrounding mountains, such as Luotuo Hill. Together with the large mammalian faunas from both south and north China, we suggest that these mammalian faunas were smaller in size and lower in species diversity during the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT) (1.2–0.7 Ma) than in the earlier and later Pleistocene. This indicates that major climatic variations during the MPT in north China may have reduced their taxonomic abundance and diversity. The extremely warm and wet interglacial climates that followed the MPT in monsoonal East Asia provided an ecological niche for the evolution and migration of these mammalian faunas, resulting in an increase in the numbers and diversity of mammals in East Asia.

Recently, rich fossiliferous deposits dated to the late Cenozoic have been discovered from Jinyuan Cave at Luotuo Hill, an extremely large-sized cave site situated within in the Dalian Puwan Economic Zone of Dalian Municipality, Liaoning Province in Northeast China. Abundant and diverse vertebrate fossils unearthed from different fossiliferous layers of Jinyuan Cave, a site of enormous size with a sedimentary thickness of over 40 m and its deposits can be roughly divided into three fossiliferous deposit units, altogether containing six fossiliferous layers belonging to different ages from the Late Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene. Based on a combination of biostratigraphic and geochronological evidence, the fossil assemblages from Jinyuan Cave can be divided into three successive faunas that span the Late Cenozoic (ca. 3.60–0.35 Ma): the Wanghai fauna from upper faunal unit (Middle Pleistocene, 0.78–0.35 Ma), the Jinyuan fauna from middle-lower faunal unit (Early Pleistocene, 2.60–0.78 Ma) and the Luotuoshan fauna of the bottommost faunal unit (Late Pliocene, 3.6–2.6 Ma). The mammalian faunal evolution of Jinyuan Cave can be divided into four temporal stages during the late Cenozoic. The new discovered Jinyuan Cave provides a unique and nearly-continuous faunal and sedimentary sequence stretching from the Late Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene, hugely significant for establishing the Quaternary Mammal Fauna Sequence of Northeast China for the first time based on a combination of biostratigraphy, geochronology, and for discussing the environmental background.

A large number of hominin fossil-bearing caves in South China have yielded evidence for the occupation of early modern humans during the Middle to Late Pleistocene. However, the geology of these caves and the paleoenvironmental context of human occupation remain poorly documented and understood. In this study, we obtained new ages yielded by MC-ICPMS uranium-series dating of speleothems from Zhiren Cave, Guangxi, where a partial early modern human mandible and 2 M have been recovered. The ages demonstrate that cave infilling of Zhiren Cave began at ~1 Ma, much earlier than the date previously suggested. Our dating results also suggest that fossils of anatomically modern human were deposited in Zhiren Cave during marine isotope stage (MIS) 6, between ~190 and ~130 ka, representing the oldest known anatomically modern human remains in East Asia. The cave's sedimentary processes and the paleoenvironmental changes were reconstructed based on detailed analyses of lithostratigraphy, grain-size, pollen assemblages and the chemical weathering intensity of the sediments inside Zhiren Cave. The results show that major climatic changes in the Middle Pleistocene led to the accelerated incision of local streams and the erosion of cave sediments by controlling the regional hydrological response during the Early to Middle Pleistocene. After ~300 ka, increased climatic contrasts between glacial and interglacial periods dominated the accumulation of sediments and the occupation of mammals and early modern humans in Zhiren Cave. Gradually desiccating climatic conditions and reduced forest cover during the penultimate glacial period (MIS 6) may have define a temporal window for the human occupation of Zhiren Cave, providing ideal environmental conditions. However, floodwater incursion and/or dense vegetation cover corresponding to a much warmer and wetter climate in the subsequent last interglacial (MIS 5) may have discouraged humans from further occupying Zhiren Cave.

Our understanding of the chronological sequence of Pleistocene land mammal faunas (including hominids) preserved in caves and fissures in the karstic terrain of subtropical southern China has been greatly impeded by the discontinuous nature of the strata yielding the fossils. A contributory issue is the lack of suitable elements for numerical dating, especially for the Early Pleistocene cave sediments. Here we present new magnetostratigraphic dating results for five cave sedimentary sequences in the Bubing Basin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which contain the typical Pleistocene Gigantopithecus fauna and Ailuropoda–Stegodon fauna of southern China. The five karstic caves are situated at elevations ranging from 252 m to 191 m above sea level. The integrated dating results reveal that the five cave sedimentary sequences span an age range from the late Gauss normal Chron to the early Brunhes normal Chron. The faunas are assigned to >2.6 Ma (Mohui–houshan Cave), 1.95–1.78 Ma (Mohui Cave), 0.99–0.78 Ma (Baolai Cave) and ∼0.7 Ma (Upper Wuyun and Ganxian Caves). Furthermore, by combining our new magnetostratigraphy work with previously published magnetostratigraphic, U–series and electron spin resonance dating results, a chronological sequence of the Plio–Pleistocene mammalian faunas from cave sites in southern China has been established. The chronological sequence contributes to an improved understanding of the evolutionary processes of Plio–Pleistocene land mammals, as well as of early humans in subtropical southern China.

The East Asian summer monsoon affects precipitation and hence vegetation in the densely populated Northwest Pacific region, yet a long-standing controversy exists concerning the spatial and temporal dynamics of the Holocene Optimum (HO) in the East Asian Monsoon Region. Here we use a detailed 14,000-year record reconstructing vegetation variations from a strategically selected crater lake from Northeast China, as well as a compilation of previous paleoclimatic studies, to show that the HO began around 6,000 Cal a BP in Northeast China, significantly later than generally recognized. By comparing our paleoenvironmental data with Holocene vegetation records from other regions of East Asia, we identified a marked northward shift for the onset of the HO from ∼ 10 , 260 Cal a BP in South China to ∼ 6 , 000 Cal a BP in Northeast China. The gradual northward transgression of the vegetation change could be caused by both the temperature and precipitation changes in different regions. Finally, we fitted a regression model of the start of the HO period versus latitude, which allowed us to make predictions for the beginning of the HO at different geographical locations. This study reveals a strong relationship between latitude and the initiation of the HO, and provides a window towards better understanding the forcing of vegetation changes in the East Asian monsoon region.

Maludong is a Terminal Pleistocene fossil-bearing cave located on the northern edge of the Southeast Asian tropical zone, southeastern Yunnan Province. Hominins from the cave include remains with affinities to archaic hominins and others with an apparent mixture of archaic and modern traits all deriving from deposits dating from the Bolling-Allerod interstadial. The sedimentary sequence of the cave appears to be largely anthropogenic in origin and records a nearly continuous record of fire lasting close to 1000 years. The fauna comprise only extant taxa and point to a rather biased sample with a preponderance of artiodactyls and carnivores, many of which show evidence for anthropogenic breakage and burning. A new analysis of the mammal fauna recovered during excavation, palaeohabitat reconstruction and stable isotope analysis of deer teeth and bones indicates the cave was located within or close to a closed forest environment. The mammal taxa also indicate a large body of water existed in the vicinity of Maludong, suggesting the modern lakes Datun Hai and Chang Qiao Hai were much larger at the time. Maludong may document an entirely novel ecological and behavioural scenario involving archaic and modern human interaction, economic exploitation and ceremonial behavior involving secondary burial practices.

The rarity and poor preservation of hominin fossils from the East Asian Early Pleistocene hamper our understanding of their taxonomy and possible phylogenetic relationship with other members of the genus Homo. In the 1970s, four isolated hominin teeth were recovered from the Meipu site, southern China, which biostratigraphic analysis placed in the late Early Pleistocene. Early reports assigned the teeth to late Homo erectus. Since then, the teeth have not been re-evaluated, nor has reliable dating been performed at the Meipu site. Here, biostratigraphic and paleomagnetic dating allow for a more precise chronological constraint of the Meipu hominins in the late Early Pleistocene, between 780 ka and 990 ka, making them one of the few known hominins for this time in mainland Asia. The comparison of the morphology of the Meipu teeth with other members of the genus Homo reveals that the Meipu teeth preserve traits such as moderate shoveling of the I1, the square crown contour of M1, and a buccolingually wider lingual cusp in P4 that make them closer to early Homo specimens from Africa and Homo ergaster from Dmanisi (Georgia). In addition, the Meipu teeth exhibit features that are more typical for late mainland East Asian H. erectus, such as the moderately convex I1 labial surface and a pronouncedly convex I2 labial surface. In these features, the Meipu hominins are morphologically intermediate between African/Dmanisi early Homo and East Asian Middle Pleistocene hominins. This study contributes to a better understanding of the morphologies and the taxonomic status of East Asian Early Pleistocene hominins, a time period for which the hominin evidence with secure stratigraphic context is scarce.

Evolutionary processes in hominoid primates were closely related to global and/or regional environmental changes, and therefore palaeoenvironmental reconstruction is fundamental for understanding how environmental changes shaped their evolution. Here, we present pollen data from the 16-m-thick Shuitangba (STB) section, Yunnan Province, southwestern China, bearing remains of the hominoid Lufengpithecus lufengensis of the terminal Miocene; and use principal component analysis to reconstruct the palaeovegetation and palaeoclimate during the key period when the hominoid lived. Our results show that before the STB hominoid appeared (Zone A), the vegetation was dominated by subtropical evergreen broad-leaved taxa with a few temperate deciduous taxa (e.g., Quercus, Castanea/Castanopsis, Alnus). The development of aquatic plants commencing at the ~ 12 m depth is a prominent feature, indicating a warm and humid climate. During the time when the hominoid lived (Zone B), evergreen broad-leaved forests with evergreen Quercus were predominant, while grasses including Poaceae began to expand, and simultaneously conifers decreased, indicating a warm climate. The significant presence of aquatic pollen taxa in subzone A-2 and Zone B suggests the occurrence of lacustrine or swampy environments. In contrast, in Zone C, the vegetation changed to coniferous forest, indicating cooler and drier conditions. These results provide substantive evidence of the vegetation conditions when the hominoid lived, suggesting that the greater diversity of vegetation and the warm humid climate, compared to the present day, would have favoured its survival.

The Quaternary loess-soil sequence in North China is of significant value for tracing variations in atmospheric circulation. In this study, we measured the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) of the Caotan (CT) loess-soil sequence from the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and analyzed the surface textural features of quartz grains of representative samples. The AMS results indicate a primary sedimentary magnetic fabric without significant disturbance by pedogenesis. The Dec-Kmax values indicate a significant shift of the dominant surface wind direction from nearly N–S to W–E since ∼300 ka, while the surface textural features of the quartz grains indicate an increase in the contribution from fluvioglacial sediments derived from the TP at the same time. As there is no evidence of significant climatic changes around 300 ka, we attribute the coeval changes of atmospheric circulation and dust source area to the uplift of the TP during the mid-Pleistocene and the resulting climatic cooling. Cooling of the TP may have led not only to the enhancement of the plateau monsoon but also to the significant accumulation of plateau glaciers, which would have resulted in accelerated physical erosion of the underlying rocks, thus increasing the quantity of fine-grained fluvioglacial sediments to be transported to the study site.

Asian marginal seas play an important role in moderating material and energy flux linkages between Asia and the Northwest Pacific, and thus have profound climatic and environmental effects. In this study, by combining paleomagnetic study with sediment grain-size analysis on the Lz908 borehole sedimentary sequence from the southern Bohai Sea, new insights into regional geomorphological process since the late early Pleistocene are obtained. The main results are as follows. (1) Paleomagnetic findings suggest that the sequence recorded the Brunhes normal chron and the late Matuyama reverse chron, including the Jaramillo normal subchron. (2) The sedimentary processes in the study area since 1327 ka show a three-stage pattern, with depositional rates of 4.3, 17 and 107 cm/ka during 1327–260 ka (later part of the early and middle Pleistocene), 260–10 ka (late middle and late Pleistocene), and the Holocene, respectively. (3) The sedimentary basin was a part of the Bohai Paleolakes (BHPL) prior to 260 ka, whose water levels were consistently higher than 3 m above the present-day level. After 260 ka, seawater entered the Bohai basin, and relative sea level cyclically fluctuated with global sea-level changes. We therefore infer that the Miaodao Islands, which were the natural barrier of the BHPL blocking seawater entry, had partially subsided before 260 ka, only allowing seawater to enter the basin during a global sea-level maximum. The BHPL terminated around 260 ka, and the “barrier” subsided completely around ~ 130 ka, causing the Bohai basin to become an inner shelf sea.

The Gigantopithecus fauna, the most important mammalian fauna during the Early Pleistocene in southern China, was usually excavated from cave or fissure deposits without precise age constraints. Here we present new magnetostratigraphy results for four cave sedimentary sequences in Chongzuo, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China, from the highest and oldest to the lowest and youngest including Baikong Cave, Juyuan Cave, Sanhe Cave and Queque Cave. Magnetite was identified as the major carrier of characteristic remnant magnetizations in the cave deposits. Correlation to the geomagnetic polarity time scale was achieved by combining magnetostratigraphic and biochronologic data. Our correlation suggests that the cave sedimentary sequences span from the pre-Olduvai Matuyama chron to the Jaramillo subchron. The combined magneto-biochronology leads to the establishment of a chronological framework for the Early Pleistocene Gigantopithecus faunas in Chongzuo area. The Gigantopithecus faunal succession of Early Pleistocene were assigned to estimated ages of ∼2.0 Ma (Baikong Cave), ∼1.8 Ma (Juyuan Cave), ∼1.2 Ma (Sanhe Cave) and ∼1.0 Ma (Queque Cave), respectively. The river incision rate in Chongzuo area during this time span was estimated to be ∼14 mm/ky.

Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) of Chinese loess is considered to be an effective tool for determining paleowind direction. However, the relationship between AMS and the paleowind direction is still a matter of debate. This study reports the results of AMS measurements of Chinese loess deposited during the last glacial period on slopes of varying slope angles and orientations. The sites are located on the Chinese Loess Plateau, in West Qinling, and on the eastern margin of Qilian Mountain. The results show that within the same region, magnetic lineations are clustered along similar orientations despite differences in slope exposure and slope angle, but that different regions exhibit different directions of magnetic lineation. These results suggest that the alignment of the magnetic grains during deposition of the eolian deposits was determined by air circulation rather than by water flow on the surface of the slopes, and therefore that the AMS of Chinese loess can be used to determine paleowind directions. In addition, our results indicate that the AMS of Chinese loess is determined mainly by the patterns of regional surface wind flow that occurred during dust accumulation rather than by the uniform pattern of large-scale atmospheric circulation. In addition, since wind direction is influenced significantly by regional topography, the AMS of Chinese loess may have the potential to detect significant changes in past regional topography.

Environmental magnetism has been widely employed to reconstruct past climate changes on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP), and several climofunctions based on the magnetic properties of loess have been developed. However, systematic investigation of the quantitative relationship between topsoil magnetic enhancement and modern climate remains uncommon. In this study, we obtained surface soil samples from 257 sites over the CLP and adjacent regions. From this set, we used 180 samples from sites unaffected by potential contamination to investigate the relationship between the commonly measured magnetic properties of magnetic susceptibility and magnetic remanence and modern climatic variables. The spatial distribution of the results demonstrates a strong NW–SE gradient of the magnetic enhancement of surface soils. The results of more detailed magnetic parameters indicate that pedogenic viscous superparamagnetic and stable single-domain particles are mainly responsible for the magnetic enhancement of the soils in the studied region; and that the magnetic grain-size distribution of the ferrimagnetic components of pedogenic origin remains almost constant, independent of pedogenic intensity. The uniform mechanism of magnetic enhancement, mainly linked with the concentration of the pedogenic components rather than with variations in magnetic grain-size, decreases the level of ambiguity in climate reconstructions based on magnetic measurements of Chinese loess. Statistical analyses, including correlation, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and multiple regression analysis, suggest that annual rainfall rather than temperature exerts the dominant effect on soil magnetic enhancement. Finally, we used the results to develop several transfer functions to reconstruct mean annual precipitation (MAP). Transfer functions based on frequency-dependent susceptibility (χfd) and anhysteretic remanent magnetization (χARM) provide the most reliable estimates of MAP. This study significantly improves the understanding of the relationship between soil magnetic properties and climate.

The Bohai Sea was formed by subsidence during the Cenozoic. Some 2000–3000 m of fluvial, lacustrine and marine sediments has been deposited in this basin. Previous studies focused mainly on the transgression history, with little examination of orbital variation in relation to other areas within the Asian monsoon domain. Here, we present the late Quaternary results of a new borehole in the south Bohai Sea. Optically stimulated luminescence and radiocarbon dating, which provide concordant age estimates, were employed to generate an initial chronology for the borehole. After refining the chronology through astronomical tuning, the results showed that: (1) the grain size variation represents Asian monsoon intensity which was dominated by both solar insolation (major) and global ice volume (minor) forcing; (2) the magnetic susceptibility indicates river incision processes which were sensitive to orbital tilt with influence from solar insolation; (3) the vegetation coverage responded to global ice volume coupled obliquity changes; and that (4) neither external nor internal factors could dominate the paleoenvironmental evolution on orbital timescales in an independent way, and they are both integrated in a complex pattern. We conclude that three different astronomical rhythms have affected coastal evolution, and that the sedimentary records in the south Bohai Sea, China, result from the nonlinear interaction and the complex response to driving processes.

Alonso-Zarza et al. (2009) argued that the Miocene sedimentary sequence near Qinan (QA-I) ( Guo et al., 2002 ), north to Tianshui in Central China, represents mudflat/distal fan and shallow lake sediments. Here we show that they (1) did not take into account extensive observational evidence supporting an eolian origin; (2) erroneously correlated deposits of different origins and small lateral extent occurring in different geomorphic units; (3) inferred a common origin for distal fans in the Tianshui and Qinan regions despite contrasting tectonic and geomorphic conditions; and (4) in some cases misinterpreted features typical of eolian deposits. Accordingly, their study is not a sufficient basis for challenging earlier interpretations of Asian paleoclimates.