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The Quaternary prehistory Portal

Introduction

The Quaternary (/kwəˈtɜːrnəri, ˈkwɒtərnɛri/ kwə-TUR-nə-ree, KWOT-ər-nerr-ee) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ago to the present. The Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene (2.58 million years ago to 11.7 thousand years ago) and the Holocene (11.7 thousand years ago to today); a proposed third epoch, the Anthropocene, was rejected in 2024 by IUGS, the governing body of the ICS.

The Quaternary Period is typically defined by the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets related to the Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that they caused. (Full article...)

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Selected article on the Quaternary prehistory world and its legacies

The Saint Croix macaw (Ara autocthones) is an extinct species of parrot. The last populations lived on the Caribbean islands Saint Croix and Puerto Rico. It was originally described by Alexander Wetmore in 1937 based on a subfossil limb bone unearthed by L. J. Korn in 1934 from a kitchen midden at an Amerindian archeological site on Saint Croix. A second specimen was described by Storrs L. Olson and Edgar J. Máiz López based on various limb and shoulder bones excavated from a similar site on Puerto Rico, while a possible third specimen from Montserrat has been reported. The species is one of two medium-sized macaws of the Caribbean, the other being the smaller Cuban red macaw (Ara tricolor). Its bones are distinct from Amazon parrots as well as from the other medium-sized but geographically distant Lear's macaw (Anodorhynchus leari) and blue-throated macaw (Ara glaucogularis). The natural range is unknown because parrots were regularly traded between islands by indigenous people. Like other parrot species in the Caribbean, the extinction of the Saint Croix macaw is believed to be linked to the arrival of humans in the region. (see more...)

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Selected article on the Quaternary prehistory in human science, culture and economics

Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In the later years of his life, Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York University.

Gould's most significant contribution to evolutionary biology was the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which he developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972. The theory proposes that most evolution is marked by long periods of evolutionary stability, which is punctuated by rare instances of branching evolution. The theory was contrasted against phyletic gradualism, the popular idea that evolutionary change is marked by a pattern of smooth and continuous change in the fossil record.

Most of Gould's research was based on the land snail genera Poecilozonites and Cerion. He also contributed to evolutionary developmental biology, and has received wide praise for his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny. In evolutionary theory he opposed strict selectionism, sociobiology as applied to humans, and evolutionary psychology. Gould was known by the general public mainly from his 300 popular essays in the magazine Natural History, and his books written for a non-specialist audience. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named him a "Living Legend". (see more...)

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Homo erectus from Tautavel, France mounted in the Museum Tautavel.
Photo credit: Gerbil

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Did you know?

...that Lantian Man, who was discovered in China in 1963, preceded Peking Man by several hundred thousand years?
...that the Stag-moose (Cervalces scotti) went extinct about 11,500 years ago, part of a mass extinction of large North American mammals toward the end of the most recent ice age?
...that American lions were probably cave lions who crossed the Bering land bridge into Alaska?
... that Manot 1, a skull discovered in the Manot Cave in Israel, provides evidence that modern humans lived side-by-side with Neanderthals?
... that Mesotherium ("middle beast") (skull pictured) was so named because its discoverer believed it was an intermediate between rodents and pachyderms?