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

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.