The Pleistocene is a geologic epoch within the Quaternary Period, spanning roughly 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago, characterized by repeated glacial–interglacial cycles driven by orbital (Milankovitch) forcing and associated feedbacks in the climate system. It encompasses major expansions of continental ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere, large sea-level fluctuations, and pronounced shifts in atmospheric composition and global temperature. Stratigraphically, its base is defined near the Gauss–Matuyama magnetic reversal, and its end is marked by the transition to the Holocene following the last glacial termination. The Pleistocene is critical for understanding late Cenozoic climate dynamics and associated environmental changes.
Paleontologists have used an Ice Age fossil found 120 years ago in an underground cave to reveal that extinct giant echidnas roamed southeastern Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch, filling a major knowledge gap in the ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Apr 13, 2026
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A recent study by Dr. John Moretti of the University of Texas and local caver John Young uncovered the remains of Ice Age megafauna, revealing an entirely new ecosystem that once thrived on the Edwards Plateau. Among the ...
For modern residents of the Levant, the "Red Sea Trough" usually brings a brief, dusty transition between seasons. But 127,000 years ago, this same weather pattern may have been the literal key to human history. A new study, ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 18, 2026
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An international team led by the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has just published a paper in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews reconstructing episodes of highstands of the Black ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 18, 2026
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Neumark-Nord in northeastern Germany was a lake landscape in the last interglacial period. It is rich in archaeological finds discovered during lignite mining. The area in Saxony-Anhalt is one of the most important European ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 16, 2026
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For the first time, scientists have used DNA preserved in ancient sediments to examine how a major natural disaster affected animal populations. A new study of a catastrophic volcanic eruption during the Ice Age has found ...
Ecology
Mar 11, 2026
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There aren't any native lion or tiger populations living in Japan today, but this was not always the case. Fossil evidence indicates that at least one species of large cat roamed the archipelago during the Late Pleistocene—a ...
Some tropical land regions may warm more dramatically than previously predicted, as climate change progresses, according to a new CU Boulder study that looks millions of years into Earth's past. Using lake sediments from ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 2, 2026
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Australian and New Zealand scientists have unearthed the remains of ancient wildlife in a cave near Waitomo on Aotearoa's North Island, the first time a large number of million-year-old fossils have been found—including an ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jan 28, 2026
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Researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) have led a study, recently published in the Journal of Human Evolution, on the diet of individuals at the Sima de los Huesos site (Sierra ...
Evolution
Jan 27, 2026
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