We examined long-term charcoal records spanning the glacial–interglacial cycles that are evident in two cores collected from Lake Biwa in central Japan. We found that the records of the two cores have a similar long-term variation pattern of charcoal concentrations and abundant large charcoal fragments in postglacial sediments, which indicates that frequent fires occurred near the shores of Lake Biwa during the postglacial period. Analogous natural conditions in the early postglacial period and the early part of the last interglacial period strongly suggest that the frequent fires that occurred only during the postglacial period were anthropogenic. A comparison between the charcoal records of Lake Biwa sediments and the cultural changes and human populations in this district suggests that anthropogenic fires in this district were influenced by the lifestyle and culture of each era rather than by the populations. Humans tended to use more fire at the start of the settlement during the early Neolithic era in this region, in spite of the small population size.

中文翻译：

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从横跨冰川-冰川间周期的沉积木炭记录推断，与日本中部文化变化有关的冰川后人为火灾

我们研究了跨越冰川-冰川间周期的长期木炭记录，这些记录在从日本中部琵琶湖采集的两个岩心中很明显。我们发现，这两个岩心的记录在冰期后的沉积物中具有相似的碳浓度长期变化模式和大量的大量木炭碎片，这表明在冰期后琵琶湖附近发生了频繁的大火。冰期后早期和末次冰期之间早期的类似自然条件强烈表明，仅在冰期后发生的频繁火灾是人为的。琵琶湖沉积物的木炭记录与该地区的文化变化和人口之间的比较表明，该地区的人为火灾是受各个时代的生活方式和文化的影响，而不是人口的影响。尽管人口较少，但在该地区的新石器时代初期，人类在定居点开始时往往使用更多的火。