Table 2. Disturbance types and indicators (proxies) extracted from published palaeoecological studies.

Disturbance source	Disturbance type	Proxy
Natural	Climate (C)Precipitation (CP)Sea-level rise (CS)	Oxygen isotopes, fire (low levels, not linked to human presence), magnetic susceptibility, lithologyRainfall, monsoon strength variation, climate drying (CD)Sea level
	Large infrequent (LI)	Hurricane (LI-H), landslide (LI-L), fire (LI-F), volcano (volcanic ash) (LI-V)
Human (FC)	Burning (B)	Microfossil & macrofossil charcoal
	Forest clearing (FC)	Temporary, predominantly resulting from shifting cultivation (SC), or more permanent, generally selective clearing, or not described (FC) signified by for example, fruit trees, Poaceae, & disturbance indicators/secondary forest taxa, for example, Arenga and Macaranga, or magnetic susceptibility
	Agriculture (Ag)	Agricultural indicators, for example, fruit trees—Ficus, crops—Poaceae
Unclear	(U)	Disturbance indicators present but specific type not clarified

Disturbance types and proxies (used to identify the former) were extracted either from published pollen diagrams or from the associated text. Abbreviations for the different disturbance types are given in parentheses. Smaller natural perturbations such as tree falls, though not explicitly defined due to the difficulty of identification through fossil pollen analysis, may also contribute to large infrequent (LI) disturbance events. (See Supplementary Data 1 for the full record of disturbance types referred to here.)