Lijiang River Basin is famous for its karst geomorphology.In order to better understand the paleoclimate variations and support the sustainable development of social and environment in Lijiang River Basin,we summarized the research progresses of past climate change in this area including chronology,cave monitoring,paleoclimate and environment reconstruction and human evolution. Some main conclusions can be archived as follow:①The uranium-series dating is not suit for the speleothems dating in this area for the low uranium of the bedrock,but the aragonite stalagmite may be good for dating and for paleoclimate reconstruction.②The terrestrial plants and animals can be used for 14C dating,but not for aquatic plants and animals,for the“dead carbon”effect of karst water.③Long-term cave monitoring result indicates the cave air temperature decreased and the karst process increased as the vegetation restoration.④The systematic atmospheric precipitation—cave drip water—modern calcite monitoring and recently deposited stalagmites research support the stalagmiteδ18O in this area can reflect the rainfall variation in decadal scale.⑤The first and second terraces of Lijiang River and the peat in Lijiang River Basin were formed in middle Holocene and MIS3,respectively, human appeared in this area since MIS3,and emigrated out of the cave since the middle Holocene.All these evidences indicate higher precipitation in these two periods for the stronger summer monsoon.The summer monsoon and precipitation gradually decreased since the middle Holocene.