Late Holocene human-environment interactions on a small island of the Taiwan Strait
Journal
Quaternary International
Series/Report No.
Quaternary International
Journal Volume
772
ISSN
1040-6182
Date Issued
2026-08
Author(s)
Abstract
Late Holocene paleoenvironmental records from small islands in the Taiwan Strait remain poorly documented, despite their high sensitivity to monsoon variability and human influence between Taiwan and southeastern China. This study presents the first site-specific, integrated multiproxy paleoenvironmental reconstruction from a wetland sediment core (DG-2) on Dongjiyu Island (DGY), Taiwan Strait using palynological analyses and organic geochemistry, including total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), TOC/TN ratios, and stable carbon isotopes (δ13C), together with principal component and canonical correspondence analyses (PCA/CCA). Three sedimentary zones structure the ∼2000 cal BP record; DGZ-1 (∼2000–440 cal BP) records a stable, low-energy marsh–grassland system dominated by Cyperaceae and Poaceae with negligible human influence; elevated δ13C and high TOC/TN ratios are consistent with vascular-plant-dominated organic matter (OM) input under relatively drier or shallower hydrological conditions, broadly overlapping with Medieval Climate Anomaly conditions in regional archives. DGZ-2 (∼440–140 cal BP) records a major wetland reorganization, expressed by rising Cyperaceae, declining Poaceae, higher water levels, higher sedimentation rates, and sandier inputs, with low δ13C and TOC/TN ratios indicating increased aquatic OM contributions, broadly consistent with regional Little Ice Age variability but potentially influenced by local depositional effects. DGZ-3 (∼140 cal BP to present) is dominated by anthropogenic forcing: with sustained increases in long-grained Poaceae (≥40 μm) and Artemisia , declining aquatic indicators, and the highest PC1/CC1 ordination scores, coincide with documented Han Chinese settlement (∼1760 CE) and intensified land use during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945 CE). These results demonstrate that small offshore island wetland can preserve coherent multiproxy signatures of centennial-scale climate–human transitions of the late Holocene in coastal East Asia. © 2026 Elsevier Ltd and International Union for Quaternary Research.
Subjects
Coastal wetland
Human-environment interaction
Late holocene
Organic geochemistry
Palynology
Penghu islands
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Description
Article number 110337
Type
journal article