Black carbon and charcoal records of fire and human land use over the past 1300 years at the Tongguan Kiln archaeological site, China

In summary, shifts of fire patterns in the study site over the past 1300 years have been closely related to (1) climate variation; (2) the mode of human land use; and (3) vegetation type and fuel combustion efficiency. There was an interactive, complex relationship between these factors in the Xiangjiang River Basin, and these results suggest that the intensity and pattern of human land use could have further impacts on fire patterns and landscape evolution in response to climatic change of the East Asian Monsoon, in the past as well as in the future.