Holocene climate and cultural changes in the Lake Baikal region

The results of a suite of numerical climate simulations are presented with an emphasis on regional climate change in the Lake Baikal region through the Holocene. The model simulations incorporate the documented changes in Earth's orbital parameters as well as changing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels recorded from an Antarctic ice core. In general, the climate of central Asia warms and dries through the Holocene, consistent with the rise in global carbon dioxide levels. However, the timing of the most rapid warming and drying phase is in the mid-Holocene, 7-000-6,000 calendar years before present, coincident with a cultural hiatus deduced from mortuary sites surrounding Lake Baikal. A number of independent proxy records from both central Asia and Mongolia show that the model simulations are in quite good agreement with the data. It is therefore possible that climatic change and the concomitant changes in vegetation recorded by the proxy data played a role in the cultural hiatus. Migration of people from south to north at this time, as determined from mitochondrial DNA, is discussed in the context of a changing climate.