Fire and human record at Lake Victoria, East Africa, during the Early Iron Age: Did humans or climate cause massive ecosystem changes?

Battistel, Dario; Argiriadis, Elena; Kehrwald, Natalie; Spigariol, Maddalena; Russell, James M.; Barbante, Carlo

doi:10.1177/0959683616678466

Cited by 45 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 90 publications

(152 reference statements)

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“…4 and 5). The mid-to late Holocene changes in the lake levels and vegetation respond to decreased summer radiation and associated ISM precipitation (Berger and Loutre, 1991).…”

Section: Vegetation In the Lake Catchmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(d) Principal component 1 values (blue) as indicative of lake level changes, adjacent-average smoothing with 40 points (red), data from Bird et al (2014). (e) Summer insolation, data fromBerger and Loutre (1991).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The full dataset is available in the Supplement and can be accessed at the NOAA/World Data Service for Paleoclimatology archive (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo-search/study/ 24410; Callegaro et al, 2018). Additional data used in this study were retrieved from Berger and Loutre (1991), Bird et al (2014), Huffman et al (2010), and Zhao et al (2011). Data from Zhao et al (2011) were retrieved from the Neotoma Paleoecology Database (http://www.neotomadb.org, last access: 12 June 2018).…”

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Fire, vegetation, and Holocene climate in a southeastern Tibetan lake: a multi-biomarker reconstruction from Paru Co

et al. 2018

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Abstract. The fire history of the Tibetan Plateau over centennial to millennial timescales is not well known. Recent ice core studies reconstruct fire history over the past few decades but do not extend through the Holocene. Lacustrine sedimentary cores, however, can provide continuous records of local environmental change on millennial scales during the Holocene through the accumulation and preservation of specific organic molecular biomarkers. To reconstruct Holocene fire events and vegetation changes occurring on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding areas, we used a multi-proxy approach, investigating multiple biomarkers preserved in core sediment samples retrieved from Paru Co, a small lake located in the Nyainqentanglha Mountains (29∘47′45.6′′ N, 92∘21′07.2′′ E; 4845 m a.s.l.). Biomarkers include n-alkanes as indicators of vegetation, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as combustion proxies, fecal sterols and stanols (FeSts) as indicators of the presence of humans or grazing animals, and finally monosaccharide anhydrides (MAs) as specific markers of vegetation burning processes. Insolation changes and the associated influence on the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) affect the vegetation distribution and fire types recorded in Paru Co throughout the Holocene. The early Holocene (10.7–7.5 cal kyr BP) n-alkane ratios demonstrate oscillations between grass and conifer communities, resulting in respective smouldering fires represented by levoglucosan peaks, and high-temperature fires represented by high-molecular-weight PAHs. Forest cover increases with a strengthened ISM, where coincident high levoglucosan to mannosan (L ∕ M) ratios are consistent with conifer burning. The decrease in the ISM at 4.2 cal kyr BP corresponds with the expansion of regional civilizations, although the lack of human FeSts above the method detection limits excludes local anthropogenic influence on fire and vegetation changes. The late Holocene is characterized by a relatively shallow lake surrounded by grassland, where all biomarkers other than PAHs display only minor variations. The sum of PAHs steadily increases throughout the late Holocene, suggesting a net increase in local to regional combustion that is separate from vegetation and climate change.

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“…4 and 5). The mid-to late Holocene changes in the lake levels and vegetation respond to decreased summer radiation and associated ISM precipitation (Berger and Loutre, 1991).…”

Section: Vegetation In the Lake Catchmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Fire, vegetation, and Holocene climate in a southeastern Tibetan lake: a multi-biomarker reconstruction from Paru Co

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“…We present a new high-resolution record of pollen and elemental geochemistry data that elucidate the environmental changes from the terminus stage of the latest glacial maxima to the present. Although a number of studies (Battistel et al, 2017;Berke et al, 2014;Courtney Mustaphi et al, 2017;Foerster et al, 2012;Foerster et al, 2015;Rucina et al, 2009), have been performed in different locations throughout the East African region, in some situations the question still remains as to whether the interpreted results are regional mostly as a result of prevailing climates or site-specific either due to microclimates as a result of complex orography (Oettli and Camberlin, 2005) or anthropogenic activities (Wright, 2017). An earlier record (Coetzee, 1967) obtained from Kaisungor Swamp, near the study area has the challenge of hiatuses but it provides a good background to build on for this research.…”

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confidence: 99%

Paleoenvironmental and Paleoclimatic Changes in Tropical East Africa Since the Lgm, New Record From the Cherangani Hills, Kenya

Opiyo¹,

Cheruiyot²

2017

Geological Society of America Abstracts With Programs

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I would like to appreciate the funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the project and the support and guidance of my advisor Dr. Lawrence Kiage who has always believed that I can do better as long as I put my nose to the grindstone and work at it. Thanks to my thesis committee Dr. Deocampo and Dr. Meyer for the help accorded through the whole process and preparation of this document. Thank you Dr. Gebregiorgis for the immense support and a keen eye for detail throughout the preparation and combing of this document. A big thank you to the Geosciences department for the graduate research and teaching assistant positions they offered me; which enabled me to finance my masters' education to a successful completion. Great appreciation too to my colleagues and course mates especially Francis Muchemi who has been a friend, elder brother and mentor whom we started the journey for our studies abroad in The United States together and has always supported me in all my academic and life engagements. A big thank you to Vicky Chelang'at whom we worked in the lab together through the tedious palynological work. Not to forget Mr. Muchiri, great thanks for driving us through the challenging Cherangani Hills terrain during the coring field excursions. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

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“…galactopyranose) (Kuo et al, 2011). Several studies examine levoglucosan (L), mannosan (M) and galactosan (G) in aerosols and ice cores (Kehrwald, 2012;Simoneit, 2002;Yao et al, 2013;Zennaro et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2008), as well as in sediment cores (Battistel et al, 2016;Kirchgeorg et al, 2014;Schüpbach et al, 2015), demonstrating the suitability of MAs as paleofire proxies. PAHs are a wide group of organic compounds made up of two or more benzene rings combined together in linear, angular, or clustered arrangements (Zakir Hossain et al, 2013).…”

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Callegaro¹

2018

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The fire history of the Tibetan Plateau over centennial to millennial timescales is still unknown. Recent ice core studies reconstruct fire history over the past few decades but do not extend through the Holocene. Lacustrine sedimentary cores, however, provide continuous records of large-scale and local environmental modifications due to their accumulation of specific organic molecular markers throughout the past millennia. In order to reconstruct Holocene fire events and vegetation changes occurring on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding areas, we improved and integrated previous analytical methods. The multi-proxy procedure was applied to samples retrieved from Paru Co, a small lake located in the Nyainqentanglha Mountains (29°47'45.6" N; 92°21'07.2" E; 4845 m a.s.l.). The investigated biomarkers include n-alkanes as indicators of vegetation, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as combustion proxies, faecal sterols and stanols (FeSts) as indicators of the presence of humans or grazing animals and finally monosaccharide anhydrides (MAs) as specific markers of vegetation burning processes. Relatively high concentrations of both MAs and PAHs demonstrate intense local biomass burning activity during the early Holocene (10.9-10.7 cal ky BP), which correspond to a drier climate following deglaciation. High concentrations of MAs but not PAHs between 10.7-9 cal ky BP suggest a period of regional biomass burning followed by a decreasing fire trend through the mid-late Holocene. This fire history is consistent with local vegetation changes reconstructed from both n-alkanes and regional pollen records, where vegetation types depend on the centennial-scale intensity of monsoon precipitation. FeSts were below detection limits for most of the samples, suggesting limited direct human influences on fire regime and vegetation changes in the lake's catchment. Climate is the main influence on fire activity recorded in Paru Co over millennial timescales, where biomass burning fluctuates in response to alternating warm/humid and cool/dry periods. 2 1 Introduction Terrestrial vegetation is the primary source of biomass burning (Simoneit et al., 1999), where this combustion is due to both natural processes and anthropogenic activities. Fire-related forest clearance contributes to the global burden of greenhouse gases and causes associated global warming (Bowman et al., 2009). The impacts of global climate change on the frequency, intensity, duration, and location of biomass burning are not well known and the contribution of fire emissions to past and future atmospheric composition are not clear (IPCC, 2014). Therefore, past and present biomass burning needs to be characterized and accurately mapped in order to investigate interactions with weather, climate and landscape dynamics over a range of spatiotemporal scales. Lake sediments archive high-resolution histories of sediment flux, as well as hydrological and ecological modifications, provided as long as the lakes persist and preserve sediments through time (Yan...

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Fire and human record at Lake Victoria, East Africa, during the Early Iron Age: Did humans or climate cause massive ecosystem changes?

Cited by 45 publications

References 90 publications

Fire, vegetation, and Holocene climate in a southeastern Tibetan lake: a multi-biomarker reconstruction from Paru Co

Fire, vegetation, and Holocene climate in a southeastern Tibetan lake: a multi-biomarker reconstruction from Paru Co

Paleoenvironmental and Paleoclimatic Changes in Tropical East Africa Since the Lgm, New Record From the Cherangani Hills, Kenya

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