A timeline is a line that shows events in the order they happened, from the earliest to the latest. Historians use timelines to make the long story of the past easier to understand. The Ice Age covers such a long time that a timeline helps us see how it changed.
A very long period
The last great Ice Age is part of a period scientists call the Pleistocene. It began about 2.6 million years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. That is far longer than all of written history, which is only a few thousand years. To picture it, imagine squeezing the whole Ice Age onto a single line: written history would be only a tiny mark at the very end. Because prehistory has no written dates, scientists work out these times by studying rocks, ice layers and fossils.
Cold and warm periods
The Ice Age was not cold all the time. It repeated in a pattern:
- Glacial periods — very cold times when ice spread and the sea fell.
- Interglacial periods — warmer times when ice melted and the sea rose.
The Late Ice Age was the last very cold stage, around 20,000 years ago. After it, the Earth warmed and the ice sheets shrank, leading to the world we know today.
| Event | Approximate time |
| Ice Age (Pleistocene) begins | 2.6 million years ago |
| Late Ice Age (coldest) | about 20,000 years ago |
| Ice Age ends | about 10,000 years ago |
Key idea
A timeline places events in order. The Ice Age lasted about 2.6 million years and repeated as cold glacial and warm interglacial periods.