Description: The quantitative analysis of microscopic charcoal from stratified lake, swamp or reservoir deposits can provide a record of fire history at a number of spatial scales. Recent research on charcoal particle production, dispersal and deposition indicates that fires at varying distances from a sediment source and of varying intensities will contribute particles in different size classes differentially to a deposit. Thus, analyses of regional fire history require consideration of charcoal particle sizes as well as ubiquity. Quantitative analysis of microscopic charcoal in a sediment core from a reservoir of the Vijayanagara period ( c. AD 1300-1600) in northern Karnataka, India, indicates well-defined periods of burning which coincide with periods of open vegetation as defined by pollen analysis, and with periods of high settlement densities and intensive land use as defined by archaeological evidence. Charcoal particles in different size categories do not always co-vary in the core, reflecting differences between more local and more regional fire histories.