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For several millennia, Kulunda has been inhabited by the peoples with different types of economy, but the paleoecological aspect of their habitation has remained understudied. The most promising source of paleoecological information is natural archives of lake sediments. This article presents the first results of studying macro-charcoals in the sediment core from Lake Maloe Yarovoe. Fire conditions for the last 3500 years and type of fuel (wood or grasses) are reconstructed for each period, based on macro-charcoal analysis. Data on the type of fuel and distribution of charcoals by depth in the core were compared with palynological data, reconstructed level of mean annual precipitation, and reconstruction of vegetation from the same core obtained by other methods. The results were also compared with another macro-charcoal column from Lake Kuchuk, which was the only researched column for the south of Western Siberia. The results were compared with archaeological data on the type of economy among the different cultures which inhabited the area in various periods. It has been established that the patterns of coal distribution do not correlate with changes in vegetation and show a weak negative correlation with the level of average annual precipitation, which means that fire activity increased with increased level of precipitation. A temporal connection of change in fire regimes and types of fuel, with change in the types of economy has been observed. From 3500 to 2700 BP, during the prevalence of cattle-breeding type of economy, fire activity was maximal, occurring mainly in the steppe. By the end of the Bronze Age, with the beginning of transition to the nomadic type of economy, intensity of fires decreased, and forest began to be burned. After 1500 BP, when the nomadic type of economy prevailed, fire activity in the area of Lake Maloe Yarovoe sharply decreased. The increase in fire activity with predominance of wood charcoals in the last 200 years coincided with exploration of the region by the Russian settlers.

Spores of coprophilous fungi are well preserved in various paleoarchives, including bottom sediments in lakes. The coprophilous fungi spend part of their life cycle on the dung of herbivorous animals, where they produce spores. Due to this feature, the coprophilous fungi are used as a qualitative indicator of the presence and density of the population using domestic livestock. This paper is aimed at testing the hypothesis that fluctuations in the spore contents of coprophilous fungi are independent from climate, i.e., the possibility of using this indicator as an independent one for the qualitative reconstruction of population density in the eastern part of the Uvs Nuur basin. To do this, we have attempted to link global historical processes in Central Asia over the past three millennia with fluctuations in the contents of the coprophilous fungi spores in the bottom sediments in Lake Bayan Nuur located in the Uvs Nuur basin. Spores of the coprophilous fungi were counted on palynological slides along with other palynomorphs. Concentrations and accumulation rates (number of spores per 1 gram per year) were calculated for the coprophilous fungi. Only two genera of coprophilous fungi, Sporormilella and Sordaria, were abundantly found in the paleorecord of the lake. Comparison of historical evidence of the population of North-Western Mongolia during the last three millennia andfluctuations in the contents of the coprophilous fungi spores in the bottom sediments of the lake revealed remarkable coincidence, which allows using coprophilous fungi as a qualitative indicator of the density of the population engaged in cattle breeding. However, no relationships between the coprophilous fungi spore contents and the climate change were revealed, which characterizes this indicator as being independent of the climate change.

Cave sites often become objects of palynological reconstructions; however, the question of the representativeness of cave deposits for palynological researches in connection with the specifics of the distribution and burial of pollen grains in the caves is currently relevant and insufficiently studied. This article provides the results of a palynological study of surface samples from three sites: Strashnaya, Chagyrskaya, and Biyka-1 caves (Altai Territory). The comparison of the results based on the study of samples inside and outside the caves showed their similarity, which confirms the assumption that such data can be used for climatic reconstructions. However, there are aspects necessary to be taken into consideration when interpreting palynological data obtained from the deposits of cave sites, which is also confirmed by other researchers. Such aspects include the following: location of the sampling site: there is a negative correlation between the distance from the cave entrance and the concentration of pollen, as well as the content of anemophilic plants pollen in a sample; animal activity inside the cave: animal roosting and denning behavior or insect nesting inside the cave may cause distortion of palinospectra; cave morphology, size and number of cave entrances: it was noted that caves with one sufficiently wide entrance are more indicative, because it can provide sufficient air circulation in the cave; orientation of the cave entrances: palinospectra inside the cave may reflect the local vegetation of the territory to which the entrance is directed; specificity of the distribution of pollen grains of plants of various families: it was noted that the accumulation of pollen of entomophilic plants closer to the back of the cave is higher than anemophilic ones; different degree of resistance of the shells of pollen grains of different families: pollen grains with a shell more resistant to post-deposition processes may be present in palinospectra in greater concentration due to the destruction of grains with a less resistant shell.