Pleistocene megafauna Pleistocene megafauna Pleistocene megafauna is the set of large animals that lived on Earth during the Pleistocene epoch and became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event. Megafauna is a term used to describe animals with an adult body weight of over 44 kg (97 lbs). The last glacial period, commonly referred to as the 'Ice Age', spanned 125,000 to 14,500 years ago and was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age which occurred during the last years of the Pleistocene epoch. The Ice Age reached its peak during the last glacial maximum, when ice sheets commenced advancing
Pleistocene "Homo erectus" for much of the Pleistocene. Acheulean lithics appear along with "Homo erectus", some 1.8 million years ago, replacing the more primitive Oldowan industry used by "A. garhi" and by the earliest species of "Homo". The Middle Paleolithic saw more varied speciation within "Homo", including the appearance of "Homo sapiens" about 200,000 years ago. According to mitochondrial timing techniques, modern humans migrated from Africa after the Riss glaciation in the Middle Palaeolithic during the Eemian Stage, spreading all over the ice-free world during the late Pleistocene. A 2005 study posits that humans in this migration interbred with archaic human