Indian winter and summer monsoon strength over the 4.2&thinsp;ka&thinsp;BP event in foraminifer isotope records from the Indus River delta in the Arabian Sea

Giesche, Alena; Staubwasser, Michael; Petrie, Cameron A.; Hodell, David A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-73-2019

Articles | Volume 15, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-73-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

The 4.2 ka BP climatic event

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-73-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 1

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

15 Jan 2019

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 15 Jan 2019

Indian winter and summer monsoon strength over the 4.2 ka BP event in foraminifer isotope records from the Indus River delta in the Arabian Sea

Alena Giesche, Michael Staubwasser, Cameron A. Petrie, and David A. Hodell

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-73-2019-supplement

Data sets

63KA_DataFile_CP.xlsx A. Giesche, M. Staubwasser, C. A. Petrie, and D. A. Hodell http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/4371/

Short summary

A foraminifer oxygen isotope record from the northeastern Arabian Sea was used to reconstruct winter and summer monsoon strength from 5.4 to 3.0 ka. We found a 200-year period of strengthened winter monsoon (4.5–4.3 ka) that coincides with the earliest phase of the Mature Harappan period of the Indus Civilization, followed by weakened winter and summer monsoons by 4.1 ka. Aridity spanning both rainfall seasons at 4.1 ka may help to explain some of the observed archaeological shifts.