about the ice age?

Question

me and one of my friends are having a debate and she says there were humans around during the ice age and im pretty sure there werent....
or were there?

Answer 1

The timeline of most recent Ice Age is listed below, there were also ice ages 250-220 million years ago (Permian), 450 mya (Ordovician), and several between 650 million and 2.3 billion years ago during the Precambrian. Modern humans were around (in Africa) about 200,000 years ago, which would have been before the two most recent glacial advances of the current ice age. Species of humans other than H. sapiens existed around 2 million years ago, so yes, humans were definitely around during the most recent ice age... which technically is still going on. (It's still an ice age until the polar ice caps are gone and all the glaciers melt, even if they don't advance again... which they might do again in the distant future.) But our human ancestors were around during the worst andvances of glaciers of the ice age that most people think of when you say "The Ice Age" (the one with mammoths and sabre toothed cats and similar big furry critters).

Time (x 1000 Years)/Conditions North America
0-18 Interglacial
18-67 Glacial Wisconsin
67-128 Interglacial Sangamon
128-180 Glacial Illinoisan
180-230 Interglacial Yarmouth (Homo sapiens in Africa)
230-300 Glacial Kansan
300-330 Interglacial Aftonian
330-470 Glacial "Nebraskan"
470-540 Interglacial
540-550 Glacial
550-585 Interglacial
585-600 Glacial
600-2000 About 20 Glacial Advances & Retreats
2000 (2 mya) Beginning of Pleistocene
2600 (2.6 mya) Homo habilis (oldest known human fossil) in East Africa
4000 (4 mya) Forests still growing in Antarctica
15 mya Some glaciation in Antarctica

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Answer 2

Well sorry to say but your friend is right. We live in an ice age right now. The periods where there is more ice is simply called a glacial maxima. Right now we live in a period of warmer climate so its called a glacial minima. The current ice age has been going on for around 5 million years, ever since antarctica became covered with ice. There have many of the glacial advances and retreats, the last maxima ended around 10,000 years ago i think. Hope this answers your question.

Answer 3

Your friend is partially correct. There was never a single 'ice age'. The earth has repeatedly had cold periods and warm periods.

Ever heard about the essentially mummified remains (becuase of the cold, dry conditions that removed the moisture from the body) of early man that have been studied in recent years? They were found because of receding glaciers from the current warming trend (erroneously blamed on human activity - it a a naturally-occurring process that repeats itself over and over in cycles far longer than any person living will ever know, we have no historical perspective at all). These mummies were living people who lived their lives in cold and snowy climates, or their bodies would have decomposed instead of essentially being flash-frozen where they fell. Obviously, these people were alive during one of Earth's colder periods, or 'ice ages'.

Answer 4

There were many ice ages. The last one was about 16000 years ago. So, yes, there were humans around during the last ice age.

Answer 5

yes there were people around.