Lake Biwa,located in central Japan,contains a thick sedimentary sequence deposited in lacustrine or fluvial environments during the Pleistocene.Tephrochronology and magnetostratigraphic analysis of deep-drilling cores from the central basin showed that about 800 m thick sediment has been deposited for the last 1.3 Ma.The uppermost 250 m clay unit has provided important paleoclimate records,which can be correlated to major glacial-interglacial cycles for the last 0.45 Ma.Hence,the Lake Biwa sediment is expected to offer detailed records of Asian monsoon activity from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene.We demonstrate that anhysteretic remanent magnetization(ARM),a measure of magnetic mineral content in sediment,provides a good proxy of hydrological changes around Lake Biwa since the last glacial period.While low-field magnetic susceptibility is most widely used for stratigraphic correlation of core samples and detection of paleoenvironmental changes,ARM is more sensitive to concentration of ferrimagnetic minerals such as small magnetite grains.Our previous study on a piston-core recovered in 1995 revealed that the ARM increases in the postglacial interval and that the variation in the lower part is likely linked to millennial-scale climate changes during the last glacial period.This finding was confirmed by analysis of new piston-cores recovered from other sites in 2007.The ARM records reproducibly extend back to 46 ka,featuring major interstadials of Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles and Heinrich events.The ARM record shows variation similar to total organic carbon(TOC) content,suggesting that flux of finegrained magnetite was increased during the post-glacial and interstadial warm periods as well as flux of wash in nutrients and organic matter.A high-resolution pollen analysis showed that the ARM peaks correspond to regional vegetation response with rapid climate changes in the last glacial period.We interpret that the increased ARM represents enhanced precipitation probably associated with higher monsoon activity.The ARM records from Lake Biwa are apparently synchronized with the oxygen isotope records from stalagmites of Hulu Cave in China and the Greenland ice core(NGRJP),suggesting that the monsoon activity is interlinked with regional and global climatic changes.Future analysis of longer core samples from Lake Biwa may provide new insights of the East Asian monsoon evolution since the Middle Pleistocene. Lake Biwa, located in central Japan, contains a thick sedimentary sequence deposited in lacustrine or fluvial environments during the Pleistocene. Tephrochronology and magnetostratigraphic analysis of deep-drilling cores from the central basin showed that about 800 m thick sediment has been deposited for the last 1.3 Ma. The uppermost 250 m clay unit has provided important paleoclimate records, which can be correlated to major glacial-interglacial cycles for the last 0.45 Ma.ence, the Lake Biwa sediment is expected to offer detailed records of Asian monsoon activity from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene. We demonstrate that anhysteretic remanent magnetization (ARM), a measure of magnetic mineral content in sediment, provides a good proxy of hydrological changes around Lake Biwa since the last glacial period. Whilst low-field magnetic susceptibility is the most widely used for stratigraphic correlation of core samples and detection of paleoenvironmental changes, ARM is more sensitive to concentra tion of the ferrimagnetic minerals such as small magnetite grains. Our previous study on a piston-core recovered in 1995 that the ARM increases in the postglacial interval and that the variation in the lower part is likely linked to millennial-scale climate changes during the last glacial period. This finding was confirmed by analysis of new piston-cores recovered from other sites in 2007. ARM records reproducibly extended back to 46 ka, featuring major interstadials of Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles and Heinrich events. ARM Records shows similar similar to total organic carbon (TOC) content, suggesting that flux of finegrained magnetite was increased during the post-glacial and interstadial warm periods as well as flux of wash in nutrients and organic matter. A high-resolution pollen analysis showed that the ARM peaks correspond to regional vegetation response with rapid climate changes in the last glacial period. We interpret that the increased ARM represents enhanced precipitation probably associated with higher monsoon activity. The ARM records from Lake Biwa are apparently synchronized with the oxygen isotope records from stalagmites of Hulu Cave in China and the Greenland ice core (NGRJP), suggesting that the monsoon activity is interlinked with regional and global climatic changes . Future analysis of longer core samples from Lake Biwa may provide new insights of the East Asian monsoon evolution since the Middle Pleistocene.