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New biomarker analyses from Lake Albert, East Africa spanning similar to 15-9 ka show the most extreme, abrupt, multi-stage climate and environmental shifts during the last deglacial transition of anywhere in Africa. Records of hydroclimate expressed in compound specific delta D values from terrestrial leaf waxes and a TEX86 paleotemperature record support multiple stages of pronounced drying and cooling from 13.8 to 11.5 ka and demonstrate the dynamic behavior of the low latitude tropics during the deglaciation. The vegetation response, illustrated by compound specific delta C-13 values and fossil pollen records, was an expansion of C-4 grassland when the region was cool and arid. These results advance our understanding of a spatially and temporally complex regional response to global climate forcing, suggesting weakening of the Indian Ocean monsoon at the end of the Pleistocene that coincides with a minor decrease in the rate of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and during a time of stepwise cooling in the northern high latitudes. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.