The East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) drives the distribution of heat and water vapor in east Asia, and has been linked to the survival of billions of people in the region (An et al., 2012; Chen et al., 2015). Understanding the dynamics and variability of the EASM since the Holocene is crucial for understanding current global warming, and for accurate prediction of future climate change. As a transition region between monsoon and arid inland climates, the modern monsoon marginal zone has a semi-arid to semi-humid climate, which is highly sensitive to global climate change and to the EASM response to the changes. There are abundant geological archives in the monsoon marginal zone containing information about the evolution of the EASM (Figure 1a) (