During Leg 177 of the Ocean Drilling Program, an expanded sequence of Pliocene to Holocene calcareous muds was recovered at Site 1089 on a drift deposit in the southern Cape Basin (SE South Atlantic). The reconstruction of detrital sources and modes of sediment transport gives insight into the operational modes of regional current systems in response to climate variability over the last 590 kyr, as inferred from sedimentological and mineralogical parameters of the terrigenous sediment fraction. Terrigenous sediments mainly originate from African sources with minor contributions from distant southern sources (South America and Antarctica) and are supplied by circumpolar water masses, North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), and surface currents of the Agulhas Current. Changes in clay mineralogy as tracers of deep and shallow ocean circulation, best displayed by variations in quartz/feldspar ratios and kaolinite/chlorite ratios of clay, reflect both the northward displacement of NADW injection into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and a weakening of Agulhas Current leakage from the Indian Ocean around South Africa to the South Atlantic during glacial stages, sub-stages, and stadials. Modifications of these regional current patterns are consistent with perturbations in global conveyor circulation and climate variability on Milankovitch and sub-Milankovitch time scales. Elevated mass-accumulation rates of terrigenous matter generally document high particle fluxes and focusing effects by bottom-current action throughout the late Quaternary. Current sorting and coarsening of terrigenous mud, independently of its source signals, prevails during interglacial periods and is linked to a stronger flow of Antarctic Bottom Water and the invigoration of deep contour currents in response to long-term changes (100-kyr cyclicity) in Antarctic ice-sheet dynamics, high-amplitude fluctuations in global sea level, and increased bottom-water formation.