ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the consequences of the Younger Dryas (YD) in Britain and Europe where its effect on climate was marked; January temperatures were up to 30 to 10 C below current averages, based on the ECHAM3-T42 atmospheric general circulation model. The YD was a major climate event found in a variety of paleoclimate records from Europe and in the Greenland ice cores. However, records from Britain such as the radiocarbon-dated Llanilid Coleoptera, temperature records show potential for an earlier cooling in Britain. Using the dates-as-data approach, the radiocarbon estimates for humans and other species in Europe have been summed to show their probability distributions during the YD period. In the YD, there is a contraction of the animal species consistent with a response to the cold phase that shortened the growing season and so curtailed the opportunities for grazing.