Individual palaeoenvironmental records represent a combination of regional-scale (e.g. climatic) and site-specific local factors. Here we compare multiple climate proxies from two nearby maar lake records, assuming that common signals are due to regional-scale forcing. A new core sequence from Nar Lake in Turkey is dated by varves and U-Th to the last 13.8 ka. Markedly dry periods during the Lateglacial stadial, at 4.3-3.7 and at 3.2-2.6 ka BP, are associated with peaks in Mg/dolomite, positive d18 O, elevated diatom-inferred electrical conductivity, an absence of laminated sediments and low Quercus/chenopod ratios. Wet phases occurred during the early-mid Holocene and 1.5-0.6 ka BP, characterized by negative d18 O, calcite precipitation, high Ca/Sr ratios, a high percentage of planktonic diatoms, laminated sediments and high Quercus/chenopod ratios. Comparison with the record from nearby Eski Acıgö l shows good overall correspondence for many proxies, especially for d 18 O. Differences are related to basin infilling and lake ontogeny at Eski Acıgö l, which consequently fails to register climatic changes during the last 2 ka, and to increased flux of lithogenic elements into Nar Lake during the last 2.6 ka, not primarily climatic in origin. In attempting to separate a regional signal from site-specific 'noise', two lakes may therefore be better than one.