The 4.2 ka BP Event in the Mediterranean Region: an overview Monica Bini 1 , Giovanni Zanchetta 1 , Aurel Pers , oiu 2 , Rosine Cartier 3 , Albert Català 4 , Isabel Cacho 4 , Jonathan R. Dean 5 , Federico Di Rita 6 , Russel N. Drysdale 7 , Martin Finnè 8 , Ilaria Isola 9 , Bassem Jalali 10 , Fabrizio Lirer 11 , Donatella Magri 6 , Alessia Masi 6 , Leszek Marks 12 , Anna Maria Mercuri 13 , Odile Peyron 14 , Laura Sadori 6 , Marie-Alexandrine Sicre 10 , Fabian Welc 15 , Christoph Zielhofer 16 , and Elodie Brisset 17 1 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, University of Pisa 2 Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology, Romanian Academy Transylvania, Romania 3 Postdoctoral researcher at Lund University Quaternary Sciences, Sweden 4 GRC Geociències Marines, Departament de Dinàmica de la Terra i de l’Oceà, Facultat de Geologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain 5 School of Environmental Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, UK 6 Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy 7 School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia 8 Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden and Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden 9 Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Pisa, Pisa, Italy 10 LOCEAN Laboratory, Sorbonne Universités (UPMC, Universitè de Paris 06)-CNRS-IRD-MNHN, France 11 stituto per l’Ambiente Marino Costiero–CNR, Naples, Italy 12 Faculty of Geology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland 13 Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita, Università di Reggio Emilia e Modena, Italy 14 Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution (ISEM), Université de Montpellier, France 15 Institute of Archaeology Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland 16 Chair of Physical Geography, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany 17 IPHES, Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social, Tarragona, Spain and Àrea de Prehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain Correspondence: Monica Bini (monica.bini@unipi.it) Abstract. The Mediterranean region and the Levant have returned some of the clearest evidence of a climatically dry period occurring around 4200 years ago. However, some regional evidence are controversial and contradictory, and issues remain regarding timing, progression and regional articulation of this event. In this paper we review the evidence from selected proxies (sea-surface temperature, precipitation and temperature reconstructed from pollen, δ 18 O on speleothems, and δ 18 O on lacustrine carbonate) over the Mediterranean basin to infer possible regional climate patterns during the interval between 4.3 and 3.8 cal 5 ka BP. The values and limitations of these proxies are discussed, and their potential for furnishing information on seasonality is also explored. Despite the chronological uncertainties, which are the main limitations for disentangling details of the climatic conditions, the data suggests that winter over the Mediterranean was drier condition, in addition to already dry summers. However, some exceptions to this prevail, - where wetter condition seems to have persisted - suggesting regional heterogeneity in climate patterns. Temperature data, even if sparse, also suggest a cooling anomaly, even if this is not uniform. The most 10 1 Clim. Past Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-2018-147 Manuscript under review for journal Clim. Past Discussion started: 15 November 2018 c  Author(s) 2018. CC BY 4.0 License.