A Brief Overview of the Pleistocene Epoch for Middle School Science Classes

Dec 17, 2024

4 min read

Earth history is a fascinating topic! It is also a massive topic! The reading passage below will teach you all about the Pleistocene epoch. If you want to learn more (and why wouldn't you?!), you can check out my Earth History page. I also have all of my passages available at Teachers Pay Teachers. They come with so many extras to get your students thinking about the content! I also recommend scrolling to the bottom of the page to check out my digital picture book on the Pleistocene epoch!

Pleistocene Epoch reading passage for middle school science

Most New

The Pleistocene epoch is the first epoch in the Quaternary period. Geologist Sir Charles Lyell named the epoch using the same pattern he used to name the Pliocene and Miocene epochs. Pleistocene means “most new.” Lyell found the most modern fossils in rocks from the Pleistocene epoch.

Climate

The climate during the Pleistocene epoch was cold and dry. The Earth went through cycles of freezing ice ages and warmer interglacial periods during the epoch. During the ice ages, glaciers covered nearly 30 percent of the Earth’s surface. The glaciers reached as far south as the northern United States. During the warmer interglacial periods, the glaciers would recede. Then, during the next ice age, they would form again.

Scientists aren’t sure what caused the Earth to get so cold during the Pleistocene epoch, but they believe it has to do with the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. During the Pleistocene epoch, the Earth was slightly farther away from the Sun, so the Earth got less sunlight. The tilt of the Earth may have also affected the sunlight that reached Earth. There are many different hypotheses about the cause of the Pleistocene ice ages.

Land Bridges

During the ice ages, much of the water on Earth was trapped as ice in glaciers. Water locked in glaciers meant sea levels were much lower than they are today. Low sea levels exposed land bridges between the continents. Thirty thousand years ago, animals and early humans traveled across the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia into Alaska. Over the next twenty thousand years, early humans moved into North and South America.

Australopithecines

The first early humans had been Australopithecines in Africa. Fossils of Australopithecines are between 3.85 and 2.95 million years old. By the Pleistocene epoch, more modern species of early humans had evolved. The first species was Homo habilis. Homo habilis lived between 2.4 and 1.6 million years ago. The first Homo habilis fossil was found by Louis and Mary Leakey in Tanzania in 1960. The Leakeys named their discovery Homo habilis because he used stone tools and habilis means handy.

Homo erectus

Homo erectus was another species of early human. It lived between 1.9 million and 100,000 years ago. The earliest Homo erectus fossils are found in Africa, but the species quickly moved into Europe and Asia. As the climate warmed during an interglacial period, the animals moved north. Homo erectus followed the animals. Unlike previous early human species, Homo erectus walked completely upright. They also lost their ability to live in the trees. Their brains were larger than Homo habilis, and they looked more human. Around one million years ago, Homo erectus began controlling fire. They also used sophisticated tools to hunt and prepare food. The last fossils of Homo erectus are around one hundred thousand years old. Scientists don’t know if Homo erectus went extinct or evolved into Homo sapiens.

Homo sapiens

Originally, scientists believed Homo sapiens evolved around two hundred thousand years ago, but in 2017, a fossil of Homo sapiens was found in Morocco that was three hundred thousand years old. So, we are still learning how and where Homo sapiens first evolved.

Scientists generally believe that Homo sapiens first evolved in Africa, and they left Africa around a hundred thousand years ago. Around fifty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens began to develop human culture. They began wearing clothes made out of animal hides, burying their dead, hunting using traps, painting in caves, and creating useful objects such as fish hooks, buttons, and needles made from animal bones.

Cro-Magnon

The first Homo sapiens in Europe were named Cro-Magnon after the rock site where their bones were first found. These early people lived in Europe from about forty to ten thousand years ago. They were artistic people who created sculptures, engravings, paintings, and music. Like other early humans, they buried their dead and used tools.

Extinction Event

Humans continued to live and evolve throughout the Pleistocene epoch. Then, around twelve thousand years ago, a massive extinction event wiped out most of the giant animals on Earth. Wooly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, giant sloths, giant bears, and many other animals disappeared. Scientists believe there were several causes of this extinction event. First, the climate was changing, so it became harder for these huge animals to find food. Second, around this time, a three-mile-wide comet exploded over Canada. This could have contributed to the changing climate. The third cause was humans. By the end of the Pleistocene epoch, humans had spread to every continent except Antarctica. They were using sophisticated tools and hunting techniques to kill animals. It is possible that overhunting contributed to the extinction of these animals.

End of the Epoch

The Pleistocene epoch ended when the last ice age ended around 11,700 years ago, but the human story was just beginning.

Pleistocene Epoch Picture Book

Looking for another way to learn about the Pleistocene epoch? Check out this picture book version. The pages are a part of my Earth History bundle on Teachers Pay Teachers.