The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale

in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a 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
c. 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 Middle Pleistocene) and succeeded by the officially
ratified Greenlandian.[1] The estimated beginning of the Tarantian is the start of
the Eemian interglacial period (Marine Isotope Stage 5).[5] It is held to end with
the termination of the Younger Dryas, some 11,700 years ago when the Holocene Epoch
began.[2]

The term Upper Pleistocene is currently in use as a provisional or "quasi-formal"

designation by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). Although the
three oldest ages of the Pleistocene (the Gelasian, the Calabrian and the
Chibanian) have been officially defined, the Late Pleistocene has yet to be
formally defined, along with consideration of a proposed Anthropocene sub-division
of the Holocene.[6]

The main feature of the Late Pleistocene was glaciation, for example the W�rm
glaciation in the Alps of Europe, to 14 ka, and the subsequent Younger Dryas. Many
megafaunal animals became extinct during this age as part of the Quaternary
extinction event, a trend that continued into the Holocene. In palaeoanthropology,
the Late Pleistocene contains the Upper Palaeolithic stage of human development,
including many of the early human migrations and the extinction of the last
remaining archaic human species.

Last Ice Age

The Stone Age
^ before Homo (Pliocene)
Paleolithic

Lower Paleolithic
Early Stone Age
Homo
Control of fire
Stone tools
Middle Paleolithic
Middle Stone Age
Homo neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens
Recent African origin of modern humans
Upper Paleolithic
Later Stone Age
Behavioral modernity, Atlatl,
Origin of the domestic dog
Epipalaeolithic
Natufian
Mesolithic

Microliths, Bow and Arrows, Canoes

Tahunian
Heavy Neolithic
Shepherd Neolithic
Trihedral Neolithic
Pre-Pottery Neolithic
Neolithic

Neolithic Revolution
Domestication
Khiamian culture
Pottery Neolithic
Pottery
� Chalcolithic
vte
The proposed beginning of the Late Pleistocene is the end of the Penultimate
Glacial Period (PGP) 126 ka when the Ri� glaciation (Alpine) was being succeeded by
the Eemian (Ri�-W�rm) interglacial period.[7] The Ri�-W�rm ended 115 ka with the
onset of the Last Glacial Period (LGP) which is known in Europe as the W�rm
(Alpine) or Devensian (Great Britain) or Weichselian glaciation (northern Europe);
these are broadly equated with the Wisconsin glaciation (North America), though
technically that began much later.[7]

The Last Glacial Maximum was reached during the later millennia of the
W�rm/Weichselian, estimated between 26 ka and 19 ka when deglaciation began in the
Northern Hemisphere. The W�rm/Weichselian endured until 16 ka with Northern Europe,
including most of Great Britain, covered by an ice sheet. The glaciers reached the
Great Lakes in North America.[2] Sea levels fell and two land bridges were
temporarily in existence that had significance for human migration: Doggerland,
which connected Great Britain to mainland Europe; and the Bering land bridge which
joined Alaska to Siberia.[8][9]

The Last Ice Age was followed by the Late Glacial Interstadial, a period of global
warming to 12.9 ka, and the Younger Dryas, a return to glacial conditions until
11.7 ka. Palaeoclimatology holds that there was a sequence of stadials and
interstadials from about 16 ka until the end of the Pleistocene. These were the
Oldest Dryas (stadial), the Bolling oscillation (interstadial), the Older Dryas
(stadial), the Allerod oscillation (interstadial) and finally the Younger Dryas.
[10]

The end of the Younger Dryas marks the boundary between the Pleistocene and
Holocene Epochs. Man in all parts of the world was still culturally and
technologically in the Palaeolithic (Old Stone) Age. Tools and weapons were basic
stone or wooden implements. Nomadic tribes followed moving herds. Non-nomadics
acquired their food by gathering and hunting.[11]

Africa
In Egypt, the Late (or Upper) Palaeolithic began sometime after 30,000 BC. People
in North Africa had relocated to the Nile Valley as the Sahara was transformed from
grassland to desert.[12] The Nazlet Khater skeleton was found in 1980 and has been
radiocarbon dated to between 30,360 and 35,100 years ago.[13][14]

Eurasia
Neanderthal hominins (Homo neanderthalensis) inhabited Eurasia until becoming
extinct between 40 and 30 ka.[11][15] Towards the end of the Pleistocene and
possibly into the early Holocene, several large mammalian species including the
woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, mastodon and Irish elk became extinct.[15]

Cave paintings have been found at Lascaux in the Dordogne which may be more than
17,000 years old. These are mainly of buffalo, deer and other animals hunted by
man. Later paintings occur in caves throughout the world with further examples at
Altamira (Spain) and in India, Australia and the Sahara.[15][16][better source
needed][17][better source needed]

Magdalenian hunter-gatherers were widespread in western Europe about 18,000 years

ago until the end of the Pleistocene. They invented the earliest known harpoons
using reindeer horn.[18][better source needed]
The only domesticated animal in the Pleistocene was the dog, which evolved from the
grey wolf into its many modern breeds. It is believed that the grey wolf became
associated with hunter-gatherer tribes around 15 ka.[19] The earliest remains of a
true domestic dog have been dated to 14,200 years ago.[20] Domestication first
happened in Eurasia but could have been anywhere from Western Europe to East Asia.
[21] Domestication of other animals such as cattle, goats, pigs and sheep did not
begin until the Holocene when settled farming communities became established in the
Near East.[19] The cat was probably not domesticated before c.?7500 BC at the
earliest, again in the Near East.[22]

A butchered brown bear patella found in Alice and Gwendoline Cave in County Clare
and dated to 10,860 to 10,641 BC indicates the first known human activity in
Ireland.[23]

Far East
The very first human habitation in the Japanese archipelago has been traced to
prehistoric times between 40,000 BC and 30,000 BC. The earliest fossils are
radiocarbon dated to c. 35,000 BC. Japan was once linked to the Asian mainland by
land bridges via Hokkaido and Sakhalin Island to the north, but was unconnected at
this time when the main islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku were all
separate entities.[24]

North America

Bison occidentalis skull at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

From about 28 ka, there were migrations across the Bering land bridge from Siberia
to Alaska. The people became the Native Americans. It is believed that the original
tribes subsequently moved down to Central and South America under pressure from
later migrations.[9][15]

In the North American land mammal age scale, the Rancholabrean spans the time from
c. 240,000 years ago to c. 11,000 years ago. It is named after the Rancho La Brea
fossil site in California, characterised by extinct forms of bison in association
with other Pleistocene species such as the mammoth.[25][26][27]

Bison occidentalis and Bison antiquus, an extinct subspecies of the smaller

present-day bison, survived the Late Pleistocene period, between about 12 and 11 ka
ago. Clovis peoples depended on these bison as their major food source. Earlier
kills of camels, horses, and muskoxen found at Wally's beach were dated to
13.1�13.3 ka B.P