On this blog, we’ve explored key aspects of the Pleistocene across multiple regions—South America, North America, Australia, and part of Asia. Today, we turn to Europe, a continent that has received perhaps the most attention in paleontological and Paleolithic research. The disproportionate wealth of information we have about Europe’s history is not only because of […]
When someone thinks of Slavic people, Russians are probably the first group that comes to mind. Given the fact that they are the most populous Slavic-speaking ethnicity by a wide margin and the one with the greatest visibility in history and politics, this is hardly surprising. Therefore, it might be shocking for some to find
Pleistocene Ice Ages conjure up notions of intense cold, massive glaciers, and an endless wilderness hosting a large and diverse community of animals. Most people understand that it was a very different world. Yet, if a layman were to go tens of thousands of years back in time, the landscapes they would encounter would not
A study came out recently which identifies a previously unknown lineage of humans from North Africa which was present during the last wet Saharan period. This lineage is most closely related to North African foragers from the genetically distinctive Iberomaurisian culture, although it differed from them in some ways. It is more closely related to
See the forests in the pictures above? They are located in the Sikhote-Alin mountains in the Russian Far East. While undoubtedly scenic, a person not familiar with biodiversity in this part of the world may not understand what is so special about them. After all, they more or less just resemble forests in much of
Welcome to part 2 of this series on Late Pleistocene American extinctions. In Part 1, we introduced the debate regarding the Late Pleistocene extinctions in the Americas and thoroughly explained why humans were not simply a factor, but the main factor in the demise of megafauna. In this section, we will explore the evidence for
Nowhere is more central to the subject of the Late Pleistocene extinctions than the Americas. It was based on the staggering losses of megafauna here that an American geoscientist, Paul Martin, proposed his theory that the first humans to enter the New World were responsible for the elimination of most large-bodied species through overhunting, also
There are few places on the planet as distinctive as Australia. With its isolated geographical location and iconic landscapes, it captures the imagination of people the world over. Picturesque red deserts, glistening beaches, and Eucalyptus woodlands may provide its most characteristic scenery, but arcane rainforests, snow-covered mountains, and much more can be found on the
Imagine that it’s 30,000 years ago in a tropical savannah. A grove of palm trees lines a river nearby. What appears to be an elephant is bathing in the water while a crocodile is laying on the river bank, basking in the warm sun…
The world was a very different place during the height of last ice age-known as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)-with very different climates, landscapes, and floral and faunal distributions compared to our current epoch, the Holocene. The exact chronology of this period varies according to the source but it is generally considered to be the