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δ18O values of pedogenic minerals forming from soil water are commonly used to reconstruct paleoelevation. To circumvent some of the disadvantages of this method, soil n-alkane δD values were recently proposed as a new tool to reconstruct elevation changes, after showing that soil n-alkane δD values track the altitude effect on precipitation δD variations (r2=0.73 along Mt. Gongga, China). To verify the suitability of soil n-alkane δD values as a paleoelevation proxy we measured the δD of soil nalkanes along Mt. Kilimanjaro (Tanzania). At midslope, soil n-alkane δD values are highly influenced by the present precipitation belt, causing D-depletion. Consequently, soil n-alkane δD values do not linearly relate with altitude (r2=0.03), suggesting that they can not serve as an unambiguous proxy to infer past elevation changes. In contrast, it was recently shown that the MBT/CBT temperature proxy, which is based on the distribution of branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (GDGT) membrane lipids, is linearly related with MAT, and thus altitude (r2=0.77), at Mt. Kilimanjaro. This suggests that this proxy may be more suitable for paleoelevation reconstruction. However, application of the MBT/CBT proxy on the altitude gradient along Mt. Gongga showed that, although the MBT/CBT-derived temperature lapse rate (-5.9δC/1000 m) resembles the measured temperature lapse rate (-6.0δC/1000 m), there is a relatively large degree of scatter (r2=0.55). Our results thus show that both proxies can be subject to relatively large uncertainties in their assessment of past elevation changes, but that a combination of the soil n-alkane δD and MBT/CBT proxies can likely result in a more reliable assessment of paleoelevation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]