A 135,000-year record of vegetational and climatic change from the Bandung area, West-Java, Indonesia

Sedimentological and palynological analyses of sediment cores from the intramontane Bandung basin (West-Java, Indonesia) provide a first palaeoclimatic record for the Indonesian region covering continuously the last 135,000 years. Our data on palaeosol development indicate anomalously dry conditions for the final part of the penultimate glacial period, around 135,000 yr B.P., and very warm and humid interglacial conditions from 126,000 to 81,000 yr B.P. During the transition to the last glacial period, around 81,000 yr B.P., freshwater swamp forest of the Bandung plain was replaced by an open swamp vegetation dominated by grasses and sedges, indicating a change to considerably drier conditions, possibly related to reduced moisture uptake by the NW monsoon as a consequence of lower sea levels at the onset of glacial conditions. A strong reduction in Asplenium ferns from 81,000 to 74,000 yr B.P. suggests that drier conditions may also have occurred in the mountains of the Bandung area, while increased numbers indicate that from 74,000 to 47,000 yr B.P. it was slightly wetter again. Inferred depression of montane vegetation zones and reduced fern percentages suggests distinctly cooler and possibly drier climatic conditions prevailed in the Bandung area from 47,000 to approximately 20,000 yr B.P. For the Last Glacial Maximum 4–7°C lower temperatures are recorded.