WHAT IS THE ICE AGE?

A period of intense cold and the expansion of glaciers, resulting in a lower sea level. Such periods of large-scale glaciation may last several million years and drastically reshape surface features of entire continents. In the past, there were many ice ages; the earliest known took place during Precambrian time dating back more than 570 million years. The most recent periods of widespread glaciation occurred during the Pleistocene epoch (1,600,000–10,000 years ago). A lesser, recent glacial stage called the Little Ice Age began in the 16th century and advanced and receded intermittently over three centuries. Its maximum development was reached about 1750, at which time glaciers were more widespread on Earth than at any time since the principal Quaternary ice ages. The idea of an ice age in the geological sequence is usually credited to Jean Louis Agassiz, a Swiss naturalist, who suggested it c. 1837. Agassiz conceived a worldwide cold period when areas as far apart as North America and Germany had been glaciated.

WHAT IS THE HOLOCENE?

Present geological epoch, which began some 10,000 (bp) years ago (8300 bc). It falls within the Quaternary period (one of the four main divisions of the Earth’s history) and followed the Pleistocene Ice Age. The Holocene is marked by rising temperatures throughout the world and the retreat of the ice sheets. During this epoch, agriculture became the most common human subsistence practice. During the Holocene, Homo sapiens diversified his tool technology, organized his habitat more efficiently, and adapted his way of life. The Holocene stage/series includes all deposits younger than the top of either the Wisconsinian stage of the Pleistocene series in North America or the Würm/Weichsel in Europe.

WHAT IS THE ANGLIAN ?

ANGLIAN: Quaternary glacial deposits found in East Anglia, England. Other possibly related and isolated patches exist elsewhere in Britain, but they are older than the extreme range of radiocarbon dating and paleomagnetism shows them to be younger than 700,000 bp. This period sometimes equates with the Elster glacial maximum and dates to c. 400,000–300,000 years ago. During the Anglian-Elsterian glaciation in Europe a large ice-dammed lake formed in the North Sea, and large

overflows from it initiated the cutting of the Dover Straits. In East Anglia, the deposits are stratified below Hoxnian and above Cromerian interglacial deposits, and Acheulian and Clactonian artifacts are found in the sediments. Most of the evidence of human activity in Britain and Europe is later than this time. Anglian is more often used to describe the group of deposits or the one glaciation (antepenultimate) of that time.