Tropical peatland wildfire incidence has risen in recent decades, driven by drainage for land use and intensified by severe droughts with global climate change. These disturbances have altered vegetation structure, disrupted ecosystem functioning, and increased carbon emissions, particularly in Southeast Asia. However, the long‐term history and characteristics of wildfires in tropical peatlands remain largely unknown. Here, we...

The Holocene history of Australia's climate is surprisingly poorly understood. This is, in part, because of the relatively weak forcing of Holocene climate versus that of the late Pleistocene. However, it is commonly suggested that eastern Australia dried during the mid‐ to late‐Holocene and that this was in response to increased activity in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), in particular, the intensification of the El...

The climate of the Kimberley region in tropical northwest Australia is dominated by the Indo‐Australian summer monsoon (IASM). Understanding of the palaeoclimate since the Last Glacial Maximum in this region, which is well placed to record IASM variations, is currently based on few records. Many of these are confounded by local environmental factors such as topography, anthropogenic activity or marine processes. Here, we prese...

This research documents the paleoenvironmental evolution of Eighteen Mile Swamp on North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah), Australia, from oscillating coastal lagoon into stable freshwater swamp over the last ca. 1600 years. We analyzed multiple sediment cores via physical description, acid sulfate soil assays, particle size analysis, diatom and pollen assemblages, photosynthetic pigment content, and Itrax XRF spectrometry, alo...

The iconic sand dune systems of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), in southeastern Queensland, Australia, host numerous lakes and swamps containing organic‐rich sediment deposits that record changes in climate, fire and surrounding vegetation. Palaeoenvironmental reconstructions from individual locations can provide insights into changes in the environment, but determining the regional extent of these changes is seldom pos...

Northern Australia experiences extreme seasonality via the Indo‐Australian summer monsoon, with high inter‐annual variability in hydroclimate. Understanding the influence of hydrological variability on the landscape through the period of human occupation provides important environmental context to support the interpretation of the rich archaeological and rock art records of the region. The development of terrestrial records of...

Tropical peatlands in Southeast Asia (SEA) have undergone large-scale degradation in recent times due to extensive land use changes and drainage associated with their conversion for economic gains, and resulting fires during dry periods. This has had detrimental impacts on key peatland ecosystem processes and services such as hydrology, peat formation, carbon storage, fire prevention and biodiversity. Palaeoecological and geoc...

Our examination of pollen, microcharcoal, and sediment material in Nee Soon Freshwater Swamp Forest in Singapore revealed the following regarding its more than 20 000‐year history: (1) the pollen record supports the presence of a savanna corridor in this part of South‐East Asia during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM); (2) a high abundance of charcoal at depths greater than 1.5 m supports the existence of a dryer climate and/or m...

Aim To understand the long‐term drivers of biomass burning in the sclerophyll‐dominated forests of Australia. Location Swallow Lagoon, North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, Australia. Time period Last ca. 8 kyr. Major taxa studied Eucalyptus sensu lato, Leptospermum and Casuarinaceae. Methods High‐resolution pollen and charcoal analyses were undertaken on a ca. 8 kyr sediment record and compared with an independent quantitative...

Palynomorphs from the ODP Site 820 marine core have provided a detailed record of terrestrial environmental responses to glacial–interglacial forcing over the last 250 000 years in the Australian Wet Tropics. The development of an accurate geochronological framework for this key sequence has proved challenging. Consequently, different dominant forcing mechanism(s) have been proposed to drive environmental change in the low lat...