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| MIS 5 | |
|---|---|
| Name | Marine Isotope Stage 5 |
| Epoch | Pleistocene |
| Period | Quaternary |
| Start | ~130 ka |
| End | ~71 ka |
| Major events | Interglacial substages, sea-level highstands, Neanderthal and early modern human activity |
| Preceding | Marine Isotope Stage 6 |
| Following | Marine Isotope Stage 4 |
MIS 5
Marine Isotope Stage 5 marks a complex late Pleistocene interval characterized by multiple warm substages, pronounced sea-level oscillations, and significant developments in hominin demography and technology. It is recorded widely in Quaternary stratigraphy, marine cores, and terrestrial sequences across regions such as Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The stage has been pivotal for correlating palaeoclimate proxies, refining geochronological techniques, and situating archaeological transitions associated with Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens.
Marine Isotope Stage 5 is defined primarily by oxygen isotope ratios in benthic foraminifera extracted from deep-sea sediment cores recovered during programs including the Deep Sea Drilling Project, the Ocean Drilling Program, and the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. Chronologies for this interval integrate radiometric age models such as U–Th dating, radiocarbon dating limits, and orbital tuning tied to the Milankovitch cycles. Global timescales place its onset near the end of Marine Isotope Stage 6 around ~130 thousand years ago and its termination before Marine Isotope Stage 4 at ~71 thousand years ago. Stratigraphic frameworks use key marker horizons from cores like those retrieved near Vema Channel, ODP Site 677, and locations in the North Atlantic Ocean, Equatorial Pacific, and Mediterranean Sea to synchronize regional records.
The stage is subdivided into substages commonly labeled 5e, 5d, 5c, 5b, and 5a, with 5e often considered the peak interglacial at about 125 ka. European paleosequences such as those at Marine Isotope Stage 5e site-type terraces in the Mediterranean Basin correlate with warm substages recorded in African sequences like the Aterian-bearing deposits in North Africa and East African lacustrine records near Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika. Asian correlations use sequences from the Loess Plateau, speleothems from Soreq Cave and Heshang Cave, and marine records off the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea. North American correlations rely on coastal terraces along the California coastline and stratigraphic records from Beringia and the Gulf of Mexico.
Substage 5e corresponds to a global thermal maximum with polar amplification recorded in northern sites including Svalbard and the Barents Sea, and concomitant highstands that elevated shorelines across the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, and Atlantic Ocean margins. Isotopic evidence links insolation maxima driven by the precession index and obliquity variations of the Milankovitch theory to interstadial warming. Sea-level reconstructions derived from coral terraces on islands such as Bermuda, Bahamas, Seychelles, and New Guinea indicate peaks approaching modern sea level or several meters above it during 5e, with rapid falls during stadial substages like 5d and 5b. Glacial component shifts involve ice-sheet responses in areas tied to the Laurentide Ice Sheet, Fennoscandian Ice Sheet, and mountain glaciers in the Alps and Himalaya.
Marine proxies include benthic and planktonic foraminiferal δ18O and δ13C, Mg/Ca paleothermometry, and alkenone-derived sea surface temperatures from sites like ODP Site 722 and Core MD95-2042. Terrestrial proxies encompass pollen spectra from sequences in the Iberian Peninsula, stomatal indices in peat deposits from Boreal Canada, and speleothem δ18O and growth-rate records from Hòlen Cave, Soreq Cave, and Shulman Cave. Ice-core records from Greenland Ice Sheet Project and EPICA provide complementary temperature and greenhouse gas constraints for parts of the stage. Faunal assemblages documented at localities such as Zafarraya, Qafzeh Cave, Skhul Cave, and Ksar Akil register biogeographic shifts in mammalian distributions corresponding to climatic oscillations.
The interval encompasses crucial archaeological contexts: Middle Paleolithic and early Upper Paleolithic technologies appear in European sites like Grotte du Renne, La Ferrassie, and Vindija Cave alongside Neanderthal remains, while early Homo sapiens fossils and associated assemblages occur at Skhul Cave, Qafzeh Cave, and Ksar Akil in the Levant and Levantine corridors. African Middle Stone Age occurrences including Blombos Cave, Still Bay culture layers, and Aterian sites document symbolic artifacts such as engraved ochre, shell beads, and advanced lithic points. Genetic signals inferred from modern human and archaic DNA studies relate to demographic expansions, possible admixture with Neanderthal lineages, and dispersal events that connect regions including East Africa, the Levant, and Eurasia during warm substages.
Establishing the stage uses integrated stratigraphy: isotope stratigraphy from benthic δ18O, tephrochronology employing volcanic glass layers correlated to eruptions recorded at Santorini (Minoan eruption)-adjacent sequences, and uranium-series dating of speleothems and corals. Luminescence dating such as optically stimulated luminescence and thermoluminescence provides ages for aeolian and fluvial deposits on the Loess Plateau and coastal terraces. Bayesian age modeling combines radiometric constraints with orbital tuning and compound-specific isotope analyses to reduce uncertainties and improve synchronization among records from the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, South Atlantic, and continental archives.