The Holocene follows the Pleistocene Epoch and refers to the last 10,000 years of earth history. Although ice core records suggest that the Holocene was climatically uneventful, evidence from other regions makes its clear that climatic variability in the Holocene has been significant. In particular, both archaeological and
geological evidence show that environmental changes had dramatic impacts at the human scale. A recent millennial-scale periodicity has been observed from marine records and attention can now be focused on the extent and magnitude of shifts, such as the Little Ice Age, the Mid-Holocene "Hypsithermal," and an event 8200 years ago.
