Monsoon Extremes, Environmental Shifts, and Catastrophic Volcanic Eruptions: Quantifying Impacts on the Early Human History of Southern Australasia

The recent discovery of a relict dwarf hominin in Indonesia (the 'Hobbit') revealed the surprising diversity of early humans in Australasia. How they coexisted with modern humans for 25,000 years, then recently disappeared, is now a key question, yet little is known about the role of climatic extremes and natural disasters in their demise. We will use novel geochemical microanalysis of precisely dated speleothems to reconstruct, for the first time, extremes in life-giving monsoon rainfall, environmental shifts, and catastrophic volcanic eruptions in southern Indonesia over the past 150,000 years. This groundbreaking research will generate new insights into unanticipated climate change, early human dispersal and extinctions in Australasia.