Speleothem oxygen isotope records offer unique insights into Asian Monsoon evolution, withtheir precise chronologies used to identify abrupt climatic events. However, individual records are sometimesused to draw broad conclusions about global climate, without considering the dynamical context in which theyexist. We present a robust framework for assessing the regional significance, and hence the potential globalsignificance, of paleoclimate events, using the proposed Meghalayan age onset (associated with the “4.2 kaevent”) as a case study. Analyzing 14 well‐dated speleothem oxygen isotope records from the SISAL v3database and recent literature, we investigate the regional coherency of rapid shifts in Asian paleohydrology,which is the regional center of action for the proposed event, over the Holocene. Three robust methods fail todetect spatially coherent variability consistent with a 4.2 ka event across Asia, either because none exists orbecause it is of insufficient magnitude. In contrast, the 8.2 ka event is expressed in most records that resolve it.The absence of a clear isotopic excursion across this data set suggests that the “4.2 ka megadrought” was notglobal, with important implications for archeology and geochronology. This casts doubt on the proposal that the4.2 ka event marks the onset of a new geologic age. We do, however, observe support for a gradual isotopicenrichment between 3.9 and 3.6 ka, followed by partial recovery—consistent with the “Double Drying”hypothesis and possibly related to changes in El Niño‐Southern Oscillation variability