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Late Pleistocene
The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently defined as the time between 129,000 and c. 11,700 years ago. The late Pleistocene equates to the proposed Tarantian Age of the geologic time scale, preceded by the officially ratified Chibanian (commonly known as the Middle Pleistocene). The beginning of the Late Pleistocene is the transition between the end of the Penultimate Glacial Period and the beginning of the Last Interglacial around 130,000 years ago (corresponding with the beginning of Marine Isotope Stage 5). The Late Pleistocene ends with the termination of the Younger Dryas, some 10th millennium BC, 11,700 years ago when the Holocene Epoch began. The term Upper Pleistocene is currently in use as a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Commission On Stratigraphy
The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), sometimes unofficially referred to as the International Stratigraphic Commission, is a daughter or major subcommittee grade scientific organization that concerns itself with stratigraphy, stratigraphical, geology, geological, and chronology, geochronological matters, worldwide. It is the largest subordinate body of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). The ICS is essentially a permanent working committee, working subcommittee, which meets far more regularly than the quadrennial meetings scheduled by the IUGS, when it meets as a congress or committee, membership of the whole. Aims One of its main aims, a project begun in 1974, is to establish a multidisciplinary standard and global geologic time scale that will ease paleontology, paleontological and geobiology, geobiological comparisons region to region by benchmarks with stringent and rigorous strata criteria called Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Points ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
10th Millennium BC
The 10th millennium BC spanned the years 10,000 BC to 9001 BC (c. 12 ka to c. 11 ka). It marks the beginning of the transition from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic via the interim Mesolithic (Northern Europe and Western Europe) and Epipaleolithic (Levant and Near East) periods, which together form the first part of the Holocene epoch that is generally believed to have begun c. 9700 BC (c. 11.7 ka) and is the current geological epoch. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium, and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological analysis, anthropological analysis, and radiometric dating. Holocene epoch The main characteristic of the Holocene has been the worldwide abundance of ''Homo sapiens sapiens'' (humankind). The epoch began in the wake of the Würm glaciation, generally known as the Last Ice Age, which began 109 ka and ended 14 ka, when ''Homo sapiens sapiens'' was in the Pala ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riß Glaciation
The Riss glaciation, Riss Glaciation, Riss ice age, Riss Ice Age, Riss glacial or Riss Glacial (, ', ' or (obsolete) ') is the second youngest glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch in the traditional, quadripartite glacial classification of the Alps. The literature variously dates it to between about 300,000 to 130,000 years ago and 347,000 to 128,000 years ago. It coincides with the glaciation of North Germany. The name goes back to and who named this cold period after the river in Upper Swabia in their three-volume work ' ("The Alps in the Ice Age") published between 1901 and 1909. Boundaries and division The Riss glaciation was defined by Penck and Brückner as the Lower (''Niedere'') or Younger Old Moraines and Old Terminal Moraines High Terraces (''Jüngere Altmoränen und Alt-Endmoränen-Hochterrassen''). The type locality lies near Biberach an der Riß where the end of the northeastern Rhine Glacier stood. Results gained from over a century of research show that in al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiloannum
A year is a unit of time based on how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. In scientific use, the tropical year (approximately 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds) and the sidereal year (about 20 minutes longer) are more exact. The modern calendar year, as reckoned according to the Gregorian calendar, approximates the tropical year by using a system of leap years. The term 'year' is also used to indicate other periods of roughly similar duration, such as the lunar year (a roughly 354-day cycle of twelve of the Moon's phasessee lunar calendar), as well as periods loosely associated with the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year, the academic year, etc. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Pleistocene Extinctions
The Late Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene saw the extinction of the majority of the world's megafauna, typically defined as animal species having body masses over , which resulted in a collapse in faunal density and diversity across the globe. The extinctions during the Late Pleistocene are differentiated from previous extinctions by their extreme size bias towards large animals (with small animals being largely unaffected), and widespread absence of ecological succession to replace these extinct megafaunal species, and the regime shift of previously established faunal relationships and habitats as a consequence. The timing and severity of the extinctions varied by region and are generally thought to have been driven by humans, climatic change, or a combination of both. Human impact on megafauna populations is thought to have been driven by hunting ("overkill"), as well as possibly environmental alteration. The relative importance of human vs climatic factors in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaic Human
''Homo'' () is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus ''Australopithecus'' and encompasses only a single extant species, ''Homo sapiens'' (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called archaic humans) classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans; these include ''Homo erectus'' and ''Homo neanderthalensis''. The oldest member of the genus is ''Homo habilis'', with records of just over 2 million years ago. ''Homo'', together with the genus ''Paranthropus'', is probably most closely related to the species ''Australopithecus africanus'' within ''Australopithecus''.'''' The closest living relatives of ''Homo'' are of the genus ''Pan (genus), Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos), with the ancestors of ''Pan'' and ''Homo'' estimated to have diverged around 5.7–11 million years ago during the Late Miocene. ''H. erectus'' appeared about 2 million years ago and spread throughout Africa (deba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Human Migrations
Early human migrations are the earliest migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents. They are believed to have begun approximately 2 million years ago with the early expansions out of Africa by ''Homo erectus''. This initial migration was followed by other archaic humans including '' H. heidelbergensis'', which lived around 500,000 years ago and was the likely ancestor of Denisovans and Neanderthals as well as modern humans. Early hominids had likely crossed land bridges that have now sunk. Within Africa, ''Homo sapiens'' dispersed around the time of its speciation, roughly 300,000 years ago. The recent African origin theory suggests that the anatomically modern humans outside of Africa descend from a population of ''Homo sapiens'' migrating from East Africa roughly 70–50,000 years ago and spreading along the southern coast of Asia and to Oceania by about 50,000 years ago. Modern humans spread across Europe about 40,000 years ago. E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upper Palaeolithic
The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity in early modern humans. It is followed by the Mesolithic. Anatomically modern humans (i.e. ''Homo sapiens'') are believed to have emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago. It has been argued by some that their ways of life changed relatively little from that of archaic humans of the Middle Paleolithic, until about 50,000 years ago, when there was a marked increase in the diversity of artefacts found associated with modern human remains. This period coincides with the most common date assigned to expansion of modern humans from Africa throughout Asia and Eurasia, which may have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals. The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palaeoanthropology
Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship lines within the family Hominidae, working from biological evidence (such as petrified skeletal remains, bone fragments, footprints) and cultural evidence (such as stone tools, artifacts, and settlement localities). The field draws from and combines primatology, paleontology, biological anthropology, and cultural anthropology. As technologies and methods advance, genetics plays an ever-increasing role, in particular to examine and compare DNA structure as a vital tool of research of the evolutionary kinship lines of related species and genera. Etymology The term paleoanthropology derives from Greek palaiós (παλαιός) "old, ancient", ánthrōpos (ἄνθρωπος) "man, human" and the suffix -logía (-λογία) "study of". Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Last Glacial Maximum
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Europe, and Asia and profoundly affected Earth's climate by causing a major expansion of deserts, along with a large drop in sea levels. Based on changes in position of ice sheet margins dated via cosmogenic nuclide, terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides and radiocarbon dating, growth of ice sheets in the southern hemisphere commenced 33,000 years ago and maximum coverage has been estimated to have occurred sometime between 26,500 years ago and 20,000 years ago. After this, deglaciation caused an abrupt rise in sea level. Decline of the West Antarctica ice sheet occurred between 14,000 and 15,000 years ago, consistent with evidence for another abrupt rise in the sea level about 14,500 years ago. Glacier fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calabrian (stage)
Calabrian is a subdivision of the Pleistocene Epoch of the geologic time scale, defined as 1.8 Ma—774,000 years ago ± 5,000 years, a period of ~. The end of the stage is defined by the last magnetic pole reversal (781 ± 5 Ka) and plunge into an ice age and global drying possibly colder and drier than the late Miocene (Messinian) through early Pliocene (Zanclean) cold period. Originally the Calabrian was a European faunal stage primarily based on mollusk fossils. It has become the second geologic age in the Early Pleistocene. History of the definition of the Calabrian Because sea shells are much more abundant as fossils, 19th- and early-20th-century geo-scientists used the plentiful and well-differentiable Mollusca (mollusks) and Brachiopods to identify stratigraphic boundaries. Thus the Calabrian was originally defined as an assemblage of mollusk fossils, most brachiopods being extinct by then. Efforts were then made to find the best representation of that assemblage in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
