The Pleistocene is the geological epoch that lasted from c. 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek πλεῖστος (pleîstos), meaning "most", and καινός, meaning "new".
Evolution of temperature in the Post-Glacial period at the very end of the Pleistocene, according to Greenland ice cores
Various schemes for subdividing the Pleistocene
Pleistocene of Northern Spain, including woolly mammoth, cave lions eating a reindeer, horses, and woolly rhinoceros
Pleistocene of South America, including Megatherium and two Glyptodon
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and greenhouse periods during which there are no glaciers on the planet. Earth is currently in the ice age called Quaternary glaciation. Individual pulses of cold climate within an ice age are termed glacial periods, and intermittent warm periods within an ice age are called interglacials or interstadials.
An artist's impression of ice age Earth at Pleistocene glacial maximum
Haukalivatnet lake (50 meters above sea level) where Jens Esmark in 1823 discovered similarities to moraines near existing glaciers in the high mountains
Stages of proglacial lake development in the region of the current North American Great Lakes
Scandinavia exhibits some of the typical effects of ice age glaciation such as fjords and lakes.