class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">On the basis of spore-pollen assemblage of the core ZJK04 collected in the southwest of Pearl River Estuary, the evolutionary history of vegetation and climatic variation in Pearl River Estuary since 8 000 a B.P. was reconstructed. The spore-pollen curves made it possible to subdivide the succession into four different time intervals. The climate inferred from the spore-pollen assemblages was warm and wet in the Period I (8 090~7 800 a B.P.), temperate and wet in the Period II (7 800~4 200 a B.P.), cool and dry in the Period III (4 200~833 a B.P.), and relatively cold and wet in the Period IV (after 833 a B.P.). The most significant change in vegetation and climate in the Pearl River Estuary occurred around 4 200 a B.P. when it quickly became cool and dry, matching well with 4.2 ka B.P. event at middle and low latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. And the sharp increase in content of the Dicranopteris pollen may be related to the human activities at that time.ce prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />