The Late Pleistocene is a geochronological age of the Pleistocene Epoch and is associated with Upper Pleistocene or Tarantian stage Pleistocence series rocks. The beginning of the stage is defined by the base of the Eemian interglacial phase before the final glacial episode of the Pleistocene 126,000 ± 5,000 years ago. The end of the age is defined as 11,700 calendar years b2k (before AD 2000). The age represents the end of the Pleistocene epoch and is followed by the Holocene epoch.
Much of the Late Pleistocene age was dominated by glaciation (the Wisconsin glaciation in North America and corresponding glacial periods in Eurasia). Many megafauna became extinct over this age, a trend that continued into the Holocene. Also, human species other than modern humans died out during the Pleistocene. Humanity spread to every continent except for Antarctica during the Late Pleistocene.
Famous quotes containing the word late:
“But this was the old tree’s late branch wrenched away,
Grieving the sapless limbs, the shorn and shaken.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)