“…Only since the onset of the Iron Age, did rice agriculture gradually dominate the economy with the development and widespread use of iron tools, as revealed by various proxies, including pollen and charcoal, soil organic carbon, magnetic susceptibility, heavy metals and archaeological relics, from different sites around the Yangtze River Basin since about 3.0 ka BP (Figs. 1 and 7 and Table 2) (Atahan et al, 2008;Chen et al, 2009;Gao et al, 2005;Gu et al, 2013;Huang et al, 2004;Innes et al, 2019;Jiang and Piperno, 1999;Li et al, 2010Li et al, , 2013Ma et al, 2016;Ren, 2000;Wang et al, 2011;Zhu et al, 2002Zhu et al, , 2007Zhu et al, , 2010. Our study confirms that the dominant anthropogenic forcing of regional fire activity in the Yangtze River Basin did not occur until~3.0 ka BP.…”