Holocene sporopollen records in the Xianghu area, Zhejiang and their palaeoclimatic significance

Abstract：Based on an analysis of sporopollen from the Kuahuqiao section on the south bank of the Qiantang River, combined with 14C dating results and lithlogic and petrographic characteristics of sediments, the early and middle Holocene (10-2.9 ka B.P.) in the Xianghu area, Zhejiang, is divided into three phases of palaeoclimatic development. A brief introduction is given to the sporopollen assemblages, vegetation types and cold-warm and dry-wet climatic alternations and evolution. It is pointed out that climate phase II (7.7-5.0 ka B.P.) was equivalent to the Holocene Hypsithermal or Climatic Optimum, which is in agreement with the global change, and it is in such a period that the Kuahuqiao culture was inoculated and developed. There is a good comparability between the early Holocene climatic change in the study area and that in the Shenzhen Bay area, southern China.