Abstract:

The megafaunal extinction in the Late Pleistocene has been hot discussed in the scientific fields, however, there have not yet reached consistent point of the impact of environmental change and the climate dynamics background during the mass extinction process. Northeast China, keeping abundant Mammuthus-Coelodonta fauna fossil in its wide distributing lacustrine sediments of Late Pleistocene, is very profit to the study of the environmental change and the process of the megafaunal extinction. Recently, a serial of fossil megafaunal fossil of the Late Pleistocene has been unearthed in Qinggang County, Heilongjiang Province, which mainly includes Mammuthus primigenius, Coelodonta antiquitatis and so on. In this study, basing on 17 pollen data from Yingxiancun section located in Qinggang County, we reconstructed the vegetation environment of Mammuthus-Coelodonta fauna in the area. Our study shows that the Late Pleistocene Mammuthus-Coelodonta fanua unearthed in the lacustrine sediment was living in an environment dominated by Artemisia, Asteraceae, Gramineae, Cyperaceae with a few of Picea. The pollen assemblages reveal that the area was covered by wide distributed meadow with few conifer forests during the Late Pleistocene that indicate the vast Mammoth steppe, which was wide spread in the upper latitude of Eurasian, had also extended to the central part of Northeast China during the Late Pleistocene.

Key words: Late Pleistocene, Qinggang County,Heilongjiang Province, Guxiangtun formation, Mammuthus-Coelodonta Fauna, Pollen