Holocene

The Holocene was a geological epoch on Earth which began about 10,000 BCE, following the Pleistocene. It was a warm interval of an ice age that began about 2.5 million BCE.

Human civilisation developed in this brief window of warmth. The climate for most of the Holocene remained broadly simply up to the 21st century. The continents had shifted only around 100 kilometres over the course of the Holocene; glaciation and sea level rise had a bigger effect on the landscape. The surroundings of the early Holocene were more or less recognisable to 21st century observers.

The most dangerous and notable species of the Holocene was humanity; most of the big creatures from the Pleistocene were driven extinct around 10,000 BCE, probably by disease or the changing climate or by overhunting by humans. This was referred to as the Quaternary Extinction Event. Other species went extinct later, like the dodo.

Whilst it remained the current geological epoch in their present day, some 12,000 years after it began, some geologists argued that humanity had had such a massive influence on Earth's climate and terrain that they had entered a new era, the Anthropocene. (PROSE: Prehistory Repeating Itself ^[+]Loading...["Prehistory Repeating Itself (feature)"])