Multiproxy record of climate change during the late quaternary and human adaptive response at the Bailian Cave, Guangxi, South China

ABSTRACT

The trajectory of human evolution has been closely related with climate change, especially against the background of glacial and interglacial cycles during the Quaternary, since various climatic conditions impact human evolutionary process differently. In this article, multiple paleoenvironmental and archaeological indices, including stable isotope data and lithic remains, which are derived from the Bailian cave in Guangxi, provide an opportunity to conduct a comparative study in a broader context in South China and its adjacent regions. It is argued that Palaeolithic foragers in southern mainland China rapidly adjusted their subsistence patterns to adapt the deteriorated climate during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The present research provides new evidence on the interaction of climatic oscillation and human adaptive change at the end of the Last Ice Age.

KEYWORDS:

• Human evolution
• last glacial maximum
• climate change
• human adaptation
• stable isotope analysis

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr Zhao Keliang, from IVPP and Hao Xiudong from Nanning Normal University, for him help for Pollen research and discussion in the paper.

This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 18CKG004), the Guangxi Natural Science Foundation (No. 2021GXNSFAA196010), and the Shanghai Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science (No. 2020BLS002). We thank the anonymous reviewers for many thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. We alone are responsible for any errors that may be present.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province [2021GXNSFAA196010]; National Social Science Foundation of Chin [18CKG004]; Shanghai Office of Philosophy and Social Science [2020BLS002].