Holocene
second and current epoch of the Quaternary Period
The Holocene () is the current geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene, together with the preceding Pleistocene, form the Quaternary period. The Holocene is an interglacial period within the ongoing glacial cycles of the Quaternary, and is equivalent to Marine Isotope Stage 1.
The Holocene correlates with the last maximum axial tilt towards the Sun of the Earth's obliquity. The Holocene corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth, and impacts of the human species worldwide, hence the Holocene is often commonly referred to as the Age of Humans, including all of its written history, technological revolutions, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition towards urban living in the present. The human impact on modern-era Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global significance for the future evolution of living species, including approximately synchronous lithospheric evidence, or more recently hydrospheric and atmospheric evidence of the human impact.
Following the extinction of most large terrestrial mammals outside of Africa during the preceding Late Pleistocene, the ecosystems of the Holocene continued to be impacted by extinctions (the ongoing Holocene extinction), largely of human causation.
In July 2018, the International Union of Geological Sciences split the Holocene Epoch into three distinct ages based on the climate, Greenlandian (11,700 years ago to 8,200 years ago), Northgrippian (8,200 years ago to 4,200 years ago) and Meghalayan (4,200 years ago to the present), as proposed by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. The oldest age, the Greenlandian, was characterized by a warming following the preceding ice age.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q25445. The Library of Congress control number is sh85097145. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Holocene” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.