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Far‐travelled ash layers from explosive volcanic eruptions can provide invaluable marker horizons for dating and correlating regional to global sedimentary archives. Here, we present a new cryptotephra associated with the ~5.9 cal ka bp Towada‐Chuseri eruption (To‐Cu) in a peat sediment record from northeast China. This tephra exhibits a rhyolitic glass composition that can be distinguished from other widespread tephra layers around the region of Japan and northeast China. Our findings extend the known range of this ash significantly, making it now traceable about 1200 km from its source, Towada volcano, Japan. Notably, this tephra provides an important isochron for synchronising palaeoenvironmental studies during the mid‐Holocene period from the western Pacific, central Japan, Japan Sea and northeast China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tephra layers from explosive eruptions can provide valuable isochronous marker horizons for paleoenvironmental studies across large regions. East Asia and Southeast Asia are host to more than half of the Earth's subaerial volcanoes, and tephras from these volcanoes offer significant numbers of widely distributed marker layers. However, the integrated tephrostratigraphic framework of this region is less refined because only limited (crypto-) tephra sequences have been established. In this study, we present a cryptotephra sequence covering the period ∼60–50 ka in East Asia from a lacustrine sediment from Huguangyan Maar Lake, southern China. Four cryptotephra layers were identified, one of which can be correlated with the ∼53.8 ka Unnan eruption (SUn) of Sambe volcano, Japan. This tephra provides a critical isochronous marker horizon for linking paleoenvironmental records from central Japan to southern China, illustrating a consistent environmental shift during early MIS 3 across this region. The three other tephras cannot be correlated with known eruptions, but glass geochemical compositions suggest that they may be from Japan or surrounding areas, implying that they too may be widely distributed around East Asia. Importantly, two of them feature at the start of MIS 3, and thus can be potentially be used to establish the synchroneity of the onset of MIS 3 around East Asia, overcoming challenges that presently hinder the dating of early MIS 3 in this region. • ∼60–50 ka tephrostratigraphic sequence of Huguangyan Maar Lake was established. • Four East Asian widespread tephra layers during early MIS 3 were identified in southern China. • Ash from the ∼53.8 ka Unnan eruption of Sambe, Japan, is a confirmed early MIS 3 marker horizon from Japan to southern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]