Last Interglacial

Depending on how a specific publication defines the Sangamonian Stage of North America, the Last Interglacial is equivalent to either all or part of it.

The period falls into the Middle Paleolithic and is of some interest for the evolution of anatomically modern humans, who were present in Western Asia (Skhul and Qafzeh hominins) as well as in Southern Africa by this time, representing the earliest split of modern human populations that persists to the present time (associated with mitochondrial haplogroup L0).

Since their discovery, Last Interglacial beds in the Netherlands have mainly been recognized by their marine molluscan content combined with their stratigraphical position and other palaeontology.

The marine beds there are often underlain by tills that are considered to date from the Saalian, and overlain by local fresh water or wind-blown deposits from the Weichselian.

At the same time a parastratotype was selected in the Amsterdam glacial basin in the Amsterdam-Terminal borehole and was the subject of a multidisciplinary investigation (Van Leeuwen, et al., 2000).

At the peak of the Last Interglacial, the Northern Hemisphere winters were generally warmer and wetter than now, though some areas were actually slightly cooler than today.

[15] A 2018 study based on soil samples from Sokli in northern Finland identified abrupt cold spells ca.

[17] During the middle of the Last Interglacial, a weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) began to cool the eastern Mediterranean region.

[21] Kaspar et al. (GRL, 2005) performed a comparison of a coupled general circulation model (GCM) with reconstructed Last Interglacial temperatures for Europe.

Coastal Alaska was warm enough during the summer due to reduced sea ice in the Arctic Ocean to allow Saint Lawrence Island (now tundra) to have boreal forest, although inadequate precipitation caused a reduction in the forest cover in interior Alaska and Yukon Territory despite warmer conditions.

[40] The temperate landscapes of Europe were inhabited by large now extinct megafauna including the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), the narrow-nosed rhinoceros (Stephanorhinus hemitoechus), Merck's rhinoceros (Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis), Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus) and aurochs (Bos primigenius), alongside still-living species like red deer (Cervus elaphus), fallow deer (Dama dama), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and wild boar (Sus scrofa), with predators including lions (the extinct Panthera spelaea) and cave hyenas (Crocuta (Crocuta) spelaea), brown bears (Ursus arctos) and wolves (Canis lupus).

[41][43] Following the melting of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, a number of North American megafauna species migrated northwards to inhabit northern Canada and Alaska during the Last Interglacial, including the American camel Camelops hesternus,[44] mastodons (genus Mammut)[45] the large ground sloth Megalonyx jeffersonii, and the bear sized giant beaver Castoroides, with the lower latitudes of Canada being inhabited (in addition to the aformentioned taxa) by species like Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), stag-moose (Cervalces), and the llama Hemiauchenia.

[49] Neanderthals managed to colonise the higher latitudes of Europe during this time interval, after having retreated from the region due to unfavourable conditions during the Penultimate Glacial Period.