Hoxnian Stage

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Hoxnian
0.424 – 0.374 Ma
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Celestial body Earth
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Used byUnited Kingdom
Definition
Chronological unit Age
Stratigraphic unit Stage

The Hoxnian Stage was a middle Pleistocene stage of the geological history of the British Isles. It was an interglacial which preceded the Wolstonian Stage and followed the Anglian Stage. It is equivalent to Marine Isotope Stage 11 (MIS 11). [1] [2] [3] [4] Marine Isotope Stage 11 started 424,000 years ago and ended 374,000 years ago. [5] [6] The Hoxnian is divided into sub-stages Ho I to Ho IV. [7] It is likely equivalent to the Holstein Interglacial in Central Europe.

Contents

History

The Hoxnian Stage is named after Hoxne in the English county of Suffolk where some of the deposits created were first found. It was identified and dated with palynology or pollen evidence in the biostratigraphy and later updated with aminostratigraphic techniques. [8] Based on stratigraphic information the Hoxnian happened after the Anglian glacial as Anglian soil is frequently found underneath Hoxnian deposits. [9]

Similarly timed interglacials

The Hoxnian stage has often been correlated to the Holstein Interglacial of northern Continental Europe and the Mindel-Riss Interglacial of the Alps. However, there is ambiguity regarding the correlation of these two interglacials to either MIS 11 or MIS 9, which is related to the MIS 12 / MIS 10 ambiguity described in more detail in the article 'Elster glaciation'. [10] Recent luminenscence

The Hoxnian stage has also been equated to the Yarmouthian (Yarmouth) Stage in North America. However, the Yarmouthian Stage, along with the Kansan, Nebraskan, and Aftonian stages, have been abandoned by North American Quaternary geologists and merged into the Pre-Illinoian Stage. [11] [12] At this time, the Hoxnian and Holstein stages are correlated with a brief part of the Pre-Illinoian Stage lying between the Pre-Illinoian A and Pre-Illinoian B glaciations of North America. [4] [12]

Humans

During the Hoxnian human activity was constrained by the dense forests so humans travelled along rivers and created settlements in valleys. [9] The Beeches Pit site revealed humans possibly selected sites rich with flint for toolmaking. [9]

Environment

The Hoxnian is an interglacial phase meaning the warm periods in between glacial periods. Interglacial phases are heavily vegetated with woodlands interspersed with open areas. [13] Site deposits are often found over Anglian soil which dates to MIS 12. [9] Most sites have been found in valleys with signs of river deposits. [9] During the interglacial the valleys would have been surrounded by dense forests. [14]

Hoxnian sites

Beeches Pit, West Stow, Suffolk is a site dated to MIS 11 and under 40 km from other sites for the Lower Paleolithic and Middle Paleolithic. [15] Beeches Pit is considered a site of special interest because not only were shells and plant remains found but animal bones that were burnt. [15] The sites around Hitchin, Hertfordshire are associated with lakes caused by the melting of glaciers that settled in holes. [9] When archaeologists dug up the sites they found dense soil full of gravel. [14] The gravel is hypothesized to come from the creation of hand axes. [14] At Marks Tey, Essex the lake soil was rich with pollen spanning all of the Hoxnian and remnants of gravel and artefacts. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglian stage</span> Period of the Pleistocene epoch

The Anglian Stage is the name used in the British Isles for a middle Pleistocene glaciation. It precedes the Hoxnian Stage and follows the Cromerian Stage in the British Isles. It correlates to Marine Isotope Stage 12, which started about 478,000 years ago and ended about 424,000 years ago.

The Cromerian Stage or Cromerian Complex, also called the Cromerian, is a stage in the Pleistocene glacial history of north-western Europe, mostly occurring more than half a million years ago. It is named after the East Anglian town of Cromer in Great Britain where interglacial deposits that accumulated during part of this stage were first discovered. The stratotype for this interglacial is the Cromer Forest Bed situated at the bottom of the coastal cliff near West Runton. The Cromerian stage preceded the Anglian and Elsterian glacials and show an absence of glacial deposits in western Europe, which led to the historical terms Cromerian interglacial and the Cromerian warm period. It is now known that the Cromerian consisted of multiple glacial and interglacial periods.

The Wolstonian Stage is a middle Pleistocene stage of the geological history of Earth from approximately 374,000 until 130,000 years ago. It precedes the Eemian Stage in Europe and follows the Hoxnian Stage in the British Isles.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elster glaciation</span>

The Elster glaciation or, less commonly, the Elsterian glaciation, in the older and popular scientific literature also called the Elster Ice Age (Elster-Eiszeit), is the oldest known ice age that resulted in the large-scale glaciation of North Germany and other parts of Europe. It took place approximately 500,000–400,000 years ago. It succeeded a long period of rather warmer average temperatures, the Cromerian Complex. The Elster was followed by the Holstein interglacial, which was followed Saale glaciation. The glacial period is named after the White Elster, a right tributary of the Saale.

The Beestonian Stage is an early Pleistocene stage in the geological history of the British Isles. It is named after Beeston Cliffs near West Runton in Norfolk where deposits from this stage are preserved.

The Pastonian interglacial, now called the Pastonian Stage, is the name for an early or middle Pleistocene stage of geological history in the British Isles. It precedes the Beestonian Stage and follows the Pre-Pastonian Stage. Unfortunately the precise age of this stage cannot yet be defined in terms of absolute dating or MIS stages. The Pre-Pastonian Stage is equivalent to the Tiglian C5-6 Stage of Europe and the Pre-Illinoian I glaciation of the early Pre-Illinoian Stage of North America.

The Pre-Pastonian Stage or Baventian Stage, is the name for an early Pleistocene stage of geological history in the British Isles. It precedes the Pastonian Stage and follows the Bramertonian Stage. This stage ended 1.806 Ma at the end of Marine Isotope Stage 65. It is not currently known when this stage started. The Pre-Pastonian Stage is equivalent to the Tiglian C4c Stage of Europe and the Pre-Illinoian J glaciation of the early Pre-Illinoian Stage of North America.

The Bramertonian Stage is the name for an early Pleistocene biostratigraphic stage of geological history the British Isles. It precedes the Pre-Pastonian Stage. It derives its name from Bramerton Pits in Norfolk, where the deposits can be found on the surface. The exact timing of the beginning and end of the Bramertonian Stage is currently unknown. It is only known that it is equivalent to the Tiglian C1-4b Stage of Europe and early Pre-Illinoian Stage of North America. It lies somewhere in time between Marine Oxygen Isotope stages 65 to 95 and somewhere between 1.816 and 2.427 Ma. The Bramertonian is correlated with the Antian stage identified from pollen assemblages in the Ludham borehole.

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Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from oxygen isotope data derived from deep sea core samples. Working backwards from the present, which is MIS 1 in the scale, stages with even numbers have high levels of oxygen-18 and represent cold glacial periods, while the odd-numbered stages are lows in the oxygen-18 figures, representing warm interglacial intervals. The data are derived from pollen and foraminifera (plankton) remains in drilled marine sediment cores, sapropels, and other data that reflect historic climate; these are called proxies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cromer Forest Bed</span> Geological formation in Norfolk, England

The Cromer Forest Bed is a geological formation in Norfolk, England. It consists of river gravels, estuary and floodplain sediments predominantly clays and muds as well as sands along the coast of northern Norfolk. It is the type locality for the Cromerian Stage of the Pleistocene between 0.8 and 0.5 million years ago. The deposit itself range varies in age from about 2 to 0.5 million years ago. It is about 6 metres thick and is exposed in cliff section near the town of West Runton. For over a century the bed, named after the local town of Cromer, has been famous for its assemblage of fossil mammal remains, containing the diverse remains of numerous taxa, including deer, carnivorans and birds. Although most of the forest bed is now obscured by coastal defence, the Cromer Forest Bed continues to be eroded and is rich in fossils including the skeletal remains of the West Runton Mammoth which was discovered in 1990. The oldest human footprints outside Africa, the Happisburgh footprints as well as handaxes and bison bones with cut marks were also found in layers considered to belong to this deposit near the town of Happisburgh.

Events from the prehistory of Britain.

The Pre-Illinoian Stage is used by Quaternary geologists for the early and middle Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods of geologic time in North America from ~2.5–0.2 Ma.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Glaciation</span> Major glaciation of eastern Europe

The Don Glaciation, also known as the Donian Glaciation and the Donian Stage, was the major glaciation of the East European Plain, 0.5–0.8 million years ago, during the Cromerian Stage of the Middle Pleistocene. It is correlated to Marine Isotope Stage 16, approximately 650,000 years ago, which globally contained one of the largest glacial volumes of the Quaternary.

References

  1. ↑ Stringer, Chris (2006). Homo Britannicus: The incredible story of human life in Britain . London: Penguin. ISBN   978-0-14-101813-3.
  2. ↑ McMillan, A. A. (2005). "A provisional Quaternary and Neogene lithostratigraphic framework Great Britain". Netherland Journal of Geosciences. 84 (2): 87–107. doi: 10.1017/S0016774600022988 .
  3. ↑ Walker, M. (2005). Quaternary Dating Methods. Chichester UK: Wiley. ISBN   0-470-86927-5.
  4. 1 2 Gibbard, P. L.; Boreham, S.; Cohen, K. M. & Moscariello, A. (2007). "Global chronostratigraphical correlation table for the last 2.7 million years v. 2007b" (jpg version 844 KB). Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy. Cambridge, England: Department of Geography, University of Cambridge.
  5. ↑ Lisiecki, L. E. (2005). Ages of MIS boundaries. LR04 Benthic Stack Boston University, Boston, MA
  6. ↑ Lisiecki, L. E. & Raymo, M. E. (2005). "A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18
    O     records"     (PDF). Paleoceanography. 20: PA1003. Bibcode:2005PalOc..20.1003L. doi:10.1029/2004PA001071. hdl: 2027.42/149224 . S2CID   12788441.
  7. ↑ Pettitt, Paul; White, Mark (2012). The British Palaeolithic: Human Societies at the Edge of the Pleistocene World. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. p. 79. ISBN   978-0-415-67455-3.
  8. ↑ Roe, Helen M.; Coope, G. Russell; Devoy, Robert J. N.; Harrison, Colin J. O.; Penkman, Kirsty E. H.; Preece, Richard C.; Schreve, Danielle C. (2009-11-01). "Differentiation of MIS 9 and MIS 11 in the continental record: vegetational, faunal, aminostratigraphic and sea-level evidence from coastal sites in Essex, UK". Quaternary Science Reviews. 28 (23): 2342–2373. Bibcode:2009QSRv...28.2342R. doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.04.017 . ISSN   0277-3791. PMC   2806946 . PMID   20119485.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Preece, R. C.; Gowlett, J. A. J.; Parfitt, S. A.; Bridgland, D. R.; Lewis, S. G. (2006–2007). "Humans in the Hoxnian: habitat, context and fire use at Beeches Pit, West Stow, Suffolk, UK". Journal of Quaternary Science. 21 (5): 485–496. Bibcode:2006JQS....21..485P. doi: 10.1002/jqs.1043 . ISSN   0267-8179.
  10. ↑ Böse et al. (2012), Quaternary Glaciations of Northern Europe, Quaternary Science Reviews 44, page 17-22.
  11. ↑ Hallberg, G. R. (1986). "Pre-Wisconsin glacial stratigraphy of the Central Plains region in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri". Quaternary Science Reviews. 5: 11–15. Bibcode:1986QSRv....5...11H. doi:10.1016/0277-3791(86)90169-1.
  12. 1 2 Richmond, G. M. & Fullerton, D. S. (1986). "Summation of Quaternary glaciations in the United States of America". Quaternary Science Reviews. 5: 183–196. Bibcode:1986QSRv....5..183R. doi:10.1016/0277-3791(86)90184-8.
  13. ↑ Ashton, Nick; Lewis, Simon G.; Parfitt, Simon; White, Mark (2006). "Riparian landscapes and human habitat preferences during the Hoxnian (MIS 11) Interglacial". Journal of Quaternary Science. 21 (5): 497–505. Bibcode:2006JQS....21..497A. doi: 10.1002/jqs.1032 . ISSN   1099-1417.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Ashton, Nick; Lewis, Simon G.; Parfitt, Simon; White, Mark (2006–2007). "Riparian landscapes and human habitat preferences during the Hoxnian (MIS 11) Interglacial". Journal of Quaternary Science. 21 (5): 497–505. Bibcode:2006JQS....21..497A. doi: 10.1002/jqs.1032 . ISSN   0267-8179.
  15. 1 2 Preece, R.C.; Parfitt, S.A.; Bridgland, D.R.; Lewis, S.G.; Rowe, P.J.; Atkinson, T.C.; Candy, I.; Debenham, N.C.; Penkman, K.E.H.; Rhodes, E.J.; Schwenninger, J.-L. (2005–2007). "Terrestrial environments during MIS 11: evidence from the Palaeolithic site at West Stow, Suffolk, UK". Quaternary Science Reviews. 26 (9–10): 1236–1300. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.11.016.

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