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Climatic and human controls on the late Holocene fire history of northern Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Nadine B. Quintana Krupinski ,
Jennifer R. Marlon ,
Ami Nishri ,
Joseph H. Street  and
Adina Paytan
Nadine B. Quintana Krupinski*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
Jennifer R. Marlon
Affiliation:
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Ami Nishri
Affiliation:
Yigal Allon Kinneret Limnological Laboratory, Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, P.O. Box 345, Tiberias N/A 14102, Israel
Joseph H. Street
Affiliation:
Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
Adina Paytan
Affiliation:
Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail address:nadine@pmc.ucsc.edu (N.B. Quintana Krupinski).
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Abstract

Long-term fire histories provide insight into the effects of climate, ecology and humans on fire activity; they can be generated using accumulation rates of charcoal and soot black carbon in lacustrine sediments. This study uses both charcoal and black carbon, and other paleoclimate indicators from Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), Israel, to reconstruct late Holocene variations in biomass burning and aridity. We compare the fire history data with a regional biomass-burning reconstruction from 18 different charcoal records and with pollen, climate, and population data to decipher the relative impacts of regional climate, vegetation changes, and human activity on fire. We show a long-term decline in fire activity over the past 3070 years, from high biomass burning ~ 3070–1750 cal yr BP to significantly lower levels after ~ 1750 cal yr BP. Human modification of the landscape (e.g., forest clearing, agriculture, settlement expansion and early industry) in periods of low to moderate precipitation appears to have been the greatest cause of high biomass burning during the late Holocene in southern Levant, while wetter climate apparently reduced fire activity during periods of both low and high human activity.

Keywords

FireIsraelHoloceneClimateKinneretGalileeCharcoalBlack carbon
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 80 , Issue 3 , November 2013 , pp. 396 - 405
Copyright
University of Washington

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