Wildfire history and climatic change in the semi-arid loess tableland in the middle reaches of the Yellow River of China during the Holocene: Evidence from charcoal records

High-resolution macroscopic charcoal and sediment analysis was used to reconstruct fire history and environmental changes from three loess-paleosol profiles on the semi-arid loess tableland landscape during the Lateglacial period and the Holocene. Analysis of charcoal concentrations, influx, and the ratios of particle-size classes (from which changes in charcoal taphonomy over time are inferred) in the profiles show spatially coherent patterns of change that relate to regional variations in climate. Effective moisture variability on century to millennial timescales and regional differences in fuel availability appear to be the most important controls on fire from the Lateglacial period to the mid Holocene (12,000–3100 yr BP). Conversely, asynchronous fire patterns during the late Holocene appear to indicate regional and temporal variations as well as changing intensities of human activity. Land use intensified in the region during the late Holocene, when the climate became more arid, and a distinct increa...