Last Glacial Period (110,000 - 9700 BC): Ancient History Timeline

The last Ice Age saw massive ice sheets covering much of North America, Europe, and Asia, with sea levels 120 meters lower than today. Vast areas of now-su

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Navigate ancient history through major time periods, from the pre-Ice Age era through Classical Antiquity and beyond. Each era page brings together the archaeological sites, key events, and theoretical frameworks relevant to that period. Explore how civilizations rose and fell across millennia, understand the geological and climatic events that shaped human development, and discover connections between sites and cultures separated by thousands of years. Our timeline integrates mainstream archaeological dating with alternative chronologies for a comprehensive view of the ancient past.

Last Glacial Period (110,000 - 9700 BC)

The last Ice Age saw massive ice sheets covering much of North America, Europe, and Asia, with sea levels 120 meters lower than today. Vast areas of now-submerged continental shelf were exposed, including land bridges connecting continents and islands. Human populations survived in refugia and developed increasingly sophisticated tools, art, and social organization. The end of this period, marked...

Key Events

• Last Glacial Maximum (c. 26,000-19,000 BC) — ice sheets at their greatest extent
• Sea levels 120m lower than today, exposing vast continental shelves
• Venus figurines appear across Europe (c. 30,000-20,000 BC)
• Younger Dryas cold snap begins (c. 10,900 BC) — possible cosmic impact
• Megafauna extinction accelerates across multiple continents

Explore the archaeological sites, discoveries, and theories from this transformative period in human history on Ancient Origins Explorer.