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Climatic Change and Ancient Civilizations

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Encyclopedia of World Climatology

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Climatic change during the postglacial period

The Quaternary period is characterized as a glacial age. The coldest period of the last glaciation was about 18 000 years bp (based on uncalibrate 14C estimate), when margins of ice sheets and glaciers began to retreat in northern Europe, North America, and regions of the Eurasian continent. The end of that glacial age brought great changes in the landscape, due not only to the retreat of ice sheets and glaciers but also to the rise in sea level caused by melting ice. The rise in sea level occurred not only in the postglacial period but also between 17 000 and 14 000 years bp and between 10 000 and 7000 years bp. The latter phase was drastic in northern Europe particularly rapid, and north America because of glacio-isostatic rebound. Worldwide rise in sea level from the last glaciation to the present is estimated to be 140 m in total.

The hypsithermal

The last glacial stage ended about 10 000 years bp, after which the climate became warmer...

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Cross-references

  1. Climatology, History of

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  2. Determinism, Climatic

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  3. Climatic Variation: Historical

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  4. Climatic Variation: Instrumental Record

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  5. Desertification

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  6. Tree-Ring Analysis

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Authors
  1. Masatoshi Yoshino
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana State University, Terre Haute, USA

    John E. Oliver

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© 2005 Springer

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Yoshino, M. (2005). Climatic Change and Ancient Civilizations. In: Oliver, J.E. (eds) Encyclopedia of World Climatology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3266-8_39

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