Stage 4
Extinction of humans, other than Homo sapiens
Stage 4 (0.129-0.012 Ma), once called the Upper Pleistocene and the Tarantian Stage, is the fourth and last age in the Pleistocene, occurring after the Chibanian, and before the Holocene (Greenlandian Age)
Geologic Age
129,000–11,7000 years ago
0.129–0.0117 Ma
Eon / Era / Period/ Epoch
What happened during this time?
An age dominated by glaciation
"Arctic vegetation consisted of dry steppe-tundra dominated by forbs, non-graminoid herbaceous vascular plants" (Willerslev et al. 2014. Nature 506: 47–51)
"During the Last Glacial Maximum (25–15 kyr BP), diversity declined markedly, although forbs remained dominant."
"Much changed after 10 kyr BP, with the appearance of moist tundra dominated by woody plants and graminoids"
Extinction of many megafauna species
Loss of ancient megafauna grazers triggered a global rise in fires (Karp et al. 25Nov2021)
Modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa possibly from H. heidelbergensis, H. rhodesiensis or H. antecessor and migrated out of the continent some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.
Although, there is early evidence of Homo sapiens found in Morocco around 300,000 years ago (Hublin et al. 2017)
H. sapiens replaces local populations of H. erectus, H. denisova, H. floresiensis and H. neanderthalensis.
Other species of Homo, such as Neanderthals, go extinct around 25 Ka.
Homo sapiens spread to every continent, except for Antarctica, by the Tarantian.