From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- "The Ice Age" redirects here. For other uses, see
Ice Age (disambiguation)
.
The
Pleistocene
stage or epoch was a long period of time. It stretched from 2.6 million years ago to 11,700 years ago.
[1]
The Pleistocene followed the
Pliocene
. It is the first
epoch
of the
Quaternary
period and the sixth in the
Cainozoic
, and is followed by the present
Holocene
.
The Pleistocene was a time of
ice ages
: cold glacial periods with shorter, warmer, interglacials. Ice ages are when the world becomes much colder for a long time. In much of the 20th century geologists counted four "major" ice ages. Nowadays several more are called "major". During these glaciations, much of the world we know was covered by ice: North America down to and past the
Great Lakes
; all of northern
Russia
, and
Europe
;
England
down to the
Thames
.
Many animals that lived then have become
extinct
.
Climate change
and
hunting
by humans were responsible.
[2]
Many of the mammals were larger cold-adapted versions of animals that live now.
Glyptodon
was something like a giant
armadillo
.
Mammoths
were a species of
elephant
in the ice age. Their popular name of
woolly mammoth
suggests the long hair which was an
adaptation
to the cold.
Ancient human species lived during the Pleistocene. In Europe and Asia the large-brained
Neanderthal
(
Homo neanderthalensis
) lived until about 30,000 years ago. Modern man did not descend from Neanderthals, but originated in
Africa
from another branch of the
genus
.
[3]
- ↑
International Commission on Stratigraphy
(ICS).
ICS geologic time scale
- ↑
Martin P.S. and Klein R.G. eds 1984.
Quaternary extinctions: a prehistoric revolution
. Arizona, Tucson AZ.
- ↑
Klein, Richard G. 2009.
The human career: human biological and cultural origins
. 3rd ed, Chicago.