A mid- to late-Holocene synthesis of fire activity from the Mediterranean basin explores the linkages among fire, climate variability and seasonality through several climatic and ecological transitions. Regional fire histories were created from 36 radiocarbon-dated sedimentary charcoal records, available from the Global Charcoal Database. During the mid-Holocene 'Thermal Maximum' around 7500-4500 cal. BP, charcoal records from the northern Mediterranean suggest an increase in fire while records from the southern Mediterranean indicate a decrease associated with wetter-than-present summers. A North-South partition between 40 degrees and 43 degrees N latitude is apparent in the central and western Mediterranean. Relatively abrupt changes in fire activity are observed c. 5500-5000 cal. BP. Records of Holocene fire activity appear sensitive to both orbitally forced climate changes and shorter-lived excursions which may be related to North Atlantic cold events, possibly modulated by an NAO-like climate mechanism. In cases where human-fire interactions have been documented, the regional coherency between fire occurrence and climate forcing suggests a dominant fire-climate relationship during the early-mid Holocene. The human influence on regional fire activity became increasingly important after c. 4000-3000 cal. BP. Results also suggest that: (1) teleconnections between the Mediterranean area and other climatic regions, in particular the North Atlantic and the low latitudes monsoon areas, influenced past fire activity; (2) gradual forcing, such as changes in orbital parameters, may have triggered abrupt shifts in fire activity; (3) regional fire reconstructions contradict former notions of a gradual (mid-to late-Holocene) aridification of the entire region due to climate and/or human activities and the importance of shorter-term events; (4) Mediterranean fire activity appears hightly sensitive to climate dynamics and thus could be considerably impacted by future climate changes

[1] Climate is an important control on biomass burning, but the sensitivity of fire to changes in temperature and moisture balance has not been quantified. We analyze sedimentary charcoal records to show that the changes in fire regime over the past 21,000 yrs are predictable from changes in regional climates. Analyses of paleo-fire data show that fire increases monotonically with changes in temperature and peaks at intermediate moisture levels, and that temperature is quantitatively the most important driver of changes in biomass burning over the past 21,000 yrs. Given that a similar relationship between climate drivers and fire emerges from analyses of the interannual variability in biomass burning shown by remote-sensing observations of month-by-month burnt area between 1996 and 2008, our results signal a serious cause for concern in the face of continuing global warming. , et al. (2012), Predictability of biomass burning in response to climate changes, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 26, GB4007,

Coupled multiproxy indicators (pollen, stable isotopes and charcoal) reconstructed from annually laminated lake sediments from Nar Gölü in Cappadocia (central Turkey) complemented by documentary and archaeological evidence provide a detailed record of environmental changes and their causes from late Antiquity (AD 300) to the present day. Stable isotope data indicate marked shifts in the variability in summer drought intensity and winter—spring rainfall, but these did not coincide in time with changes in vegetation and land use shown by pollen data. Rather, human impacts appear to have been the main driver of landscape ecological changes in Cappadocia over the last two millennia. Pollen and charcoal data indicate four principal land-use phases: (i) an early Byzantine agrarian landscape characterized by cereals and tree crops, and marking the later part of the so-called Beyşehir Occupation phase; (ii) a period of landscape abandonment and the establishment of secondary woodland from AD 670 to 950 coinciding with the Arab invasions of Anatolia and marking the transition from late Antiquity to the middle Byzantine period; (iii) the re-establishment of cereal-based agriculture and pastoralism from c. AD 950, with this cultural landscape being maintained through the Byzantine `Golden Age', the Seljuk and Ottoman Empires; and (iv) agricultural intensification during the late Ottoman era and the Turkish Republic (AD 1830 to present). Charcoal fluxes indicate that prior to the twentieth century, landscape burning was most frequent at times of diminished human impact when fuel biomass increased. Pollen and historical data show remarkably close agreement in terms of the timing of landscape change, and the former suggest that rural cultural traditions were able to survive largely intact through short-lived periods of socio-political dislocation such as the sixth century Justinian plague and the thirteenth century Mongol invasions.

No abstract

This study investigates changes in climate, vegetation, wildfire and human activity in Southwest Asia during the transition to Neolithic agriculture between ca. 16 and ca. 9 ka. In order to trace the fire history of this region, we use microscopic charcoal from lake sediment sequences, and present two new records: one from south central Turkey (Akgöl) and the other from the southern Levant (Hula). These are interpreted primarily as the result of regional‐scale fire events, with the exception of a single large event ca. 13 ka at Akgöl, which phytolith analysis shows was the result of burning of the local marsh vegetation. Comparison between these and other regional micro‐charcoal, stable isotope and pollen records shows that wildfires were least frequent when the climate was cold and dry (glacial, Lateglacial Stadial) and the vegetation dominated by chenopod–Artemisia steppe, and that they became more frequent and/or bigger at times of warmer, wetter but seasonally dry climate (Lateglacial Interstadial, early Holocene). Warmer and wetter climates caused an increase in biomass availability, with woody matter appearing to provide the main fuel source in sites from the Levant, while grass fires predominated in the interior uplands of Anatolia. Southwest Asia's grasslands reached their greatest extent during the early Holocene, and they were maintained by dry‐season burning that helped to delay the spread of woodland by up to 3 ka, at the same time as Neolithic settlement became established across this grass parkland landscape. Although climatic changes appear to have acted as the principal ‘pacemaker’ for fire activity through the last glacial–interglacial climatic transition (LGIT), human actions may have amplified shifts in biomass burning. Fire regimes therefore changed markedly during this time period, and both influenced, and were influenced by, the cultural‐economic transition from hunter‐foraging to agriculture and village life. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.