Late Pleistocene
The Late Pleistocene (also Upper Pleistocene, Late Pleistocene or Tarantium ) is the youngest and shortest section of the Pleistocene, the age of the alternating warm periods and ice ages. It started 127.000/126.000 years ago and ended 11,784 ( / - 69) years with a global warming, the Holocene, which continues to this day. The Upper Pleistocene includes the Eemian and the last glacial period.
In terms of human history, the end of the Jungpleistozäns falls approximately with the beginning of the Neolithic period, the transition from hunter-gatherer cultures to settled farmers.
Naming and GSSP
The term is translated into English with "Late Pleistocene " or " Upper Pleistocene ". As a "Global Stratotype Section and Point" ( GSSP is about one type of profile) is a hole on the Amsterdam Airport ( The Netherlands) discussed that has completely captured this section of the earth's history. The stage is expected to be named after Tarantium plans during the " International Commission on Stratigraphy ."
Definition
The lower limit was defined by the INQUA Congress in 1932 with the beginning of the Eemian, which also coincides with the base of marine oxygen isotope stage 5e. The best age determination is now given by the warvendatierten Lago Grande di Monticchio in southern Italy, with a dating of the Eemian onset at 127.2 ka BP.
The upper limit of Jungpleistozäns is marked by the end of the Younger Dryas with the transition to the Holocene.
The northern hemisphere during the Jungpleistozäns
The number following the Eemian ice phase on the continents of the northern hemisphere is geographically differentiated
- Würm glaciation for glaciations in the Alps and the Alpine foothills
- Weichselian cold period for the freezing phase in Northern Europe
- Wisconsin glaciation in North America
- In the British Isles the icing phase Devensian glaciation is called the warm period before interglacial as Ipswichian.
Faunenveränderungen during Jungpleistozäns
The Late Pleistocene is characterized by the extinction of many large mammals, especially at the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene. Even the Neanderthals died out during this period. Ins Upper Pleistocene also the advance of anatomically modern humans falls on all continents except Antarctica. For the prehistoric archeology fall within this period, the younger sections of the culture Mittelpaläolithikums and the Upper Palaeolithic as subdivisions of the Paleolithic.