Climate change in the abandonment of islands: A high-resolution case study from the tropical Pacific

Tropical climate systems affect the subsistence, settlement and population conditions of more than one billion people, and climate change in the last millennium is hypothesised to have had catastrophic environmental and societal impacts in many parts of the Pacific Basin. This proposal examines the role of climate change in the prehistoric occupation and abandonment of islands in Palau through palaeoclimate, archaeological, palaeoecological, and traditional history, investigations. The data will add to knowledge of equatorial climate regimes in the Indo-Pacific, provide the first test of the 'AD 1300' climate event, and detail human responses to climate change over several centuries.