Pleistocene vegetation in Guangxi, south China, based on palynological data from seven karst caves

Abstract

Pleistocene cave deposits usually provide ideal materials for the study of mammals. Karst caves in Chongzuo, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of south China are famous for numerous studies on their abundant mammalian fossils and most importantly, Homo sapiens. Unfortunately, the environmental backgrounds, e.g. vegetation and climate, that governed these faunas, are usually lacking because there is no appropriate proxy. In this work, we analysed the palynological assemblages from seven well-dated karst caves in Chongzuo. The ages of these seven caves (2.0–0.11 Ma) cover almost the entire Pleistocene. Though the number of pollen and spores is comparatively low, as expected, we managed to reconstruct the principle vegetation types. The results show that the individual vegetations were mainly warm temperate to subtropical evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved mixed forests. The present study provides important background environmental information on the Pleistocene faunas and Homo sapiens in Guangxi, south China.

Keywords:

• cave deposit
• palynology
• environmental background
• Chongzuo

Acknowledgements

The authors greatly appreciate the help of Prof. Chang-Zhu Jin, Prof. Qin-Qi Xu, Prof. Jia-Jian Zheng, Prof. Ying-Qi Zhang, Prof. Yuan Wang and Dr Min Zhu from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology for collecting pollen samples and providing valuable comments on the mammalian fossils. Special thanks also go to Prof. Reinhard Zetter and Dr Friðgeir Grímsson from the University of Vienna and Dr Li-Mi Mao from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences for their help with the identifications of pollen grains. The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their careful review.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (under grants 31500183, 31300186 and 41472030); CAS President’s International Fellowship Initiative (under grant 2018VBA0016); Ministry of Science and Technology of China (under grant 2015FY310100); and The China Geological Survey (under grant DD20190397).