AFTER THE ICE AGE -- Contents -- Prologue -- PART ONE PRELIMINARIES -- 1 The Physical Setting -- The Changing Climate of the Last 20,000 Years -- The Dating Method -- The Ice Sheets -- Ice and Sea -- Ice and Fresh Water -- Ice and Atmosphere -- Ice-free Land: Refugia and Nunataks -- 2 The Fossil Evidence -- Fossils -- Microfossils -- Pollen -- Sediment Cores and Pollen Diagrams -- Dating: The Radiocarbon Method -- Dating by Volcanic Ash Layers -- 3 Interpreting the Evidence -- Some of the Problems -- Interpreting Pollen Diagrams -- Interpreting Geographical Range Maps: Animals -- Interpreting Geographical Range Maps: Plants -- 4 The Migration of Vegetation -- Shifting Zones of Vegetation -- The Starting Conditions -- Conditions in the Newly Deglaciated Land -- The Invasion by Plants -- The Renewal of Vegetation -- Ecological Inertia -- Photoperiodism -- PART TWO THE TIME OF MAXIMUM ICE -- 5 Eighteen Thousand Years Ago: Life South of the Ice -- Large Mammals and Their Environments South of the Ice Sheets -- Human Life South of the Ice -- Plants South of the Ice Sheets -- 6 The Coasts -- North America as an Extension of Asia -- The South Coast of Beringia -- The Western Edge of the Ice -- The East Coast Plains and Islands -- The East Coast Refugia -- 7 Beringia and the Ice-free Corridor -- Beringia and Its Big Game -- Human Life in Beringia -- The Ice-free Corridor -- Refugia Near the Ice-free Corridor -- PART TIHREE THE MELTING OF THE ICE -- 8 The Ice Begins to Melt -- South of the Ice: Tundra -- South of the Ice: Forest Parkland and Muskeg -- Stagnant Ice -- Superglacial and Ice-walled Lakes and Their Ecology -- 9 The Great Proglacial Lakes -- Glacial Lakes Missoula and Columbia -- Migration from Beringia -- Glacial Lakes Agassiz and McConnell -- The Precursors of the Great Lakes and Glacial Lake Ojibway -- 10 The Rising Sea.

The Sundering of Beringia -- The Atlantic Shore -- The Atlantic Coastlands -- The Champlain Sea -- The Tyrell Sea -- PART FOUR THE PLEISTOCENE HOLOCENE TRANSITION -- 11 The End of an Epoch -- The End of the Pleistocene -- The Changing Forest -- The Prairie Grasslands -- Transition in the West: The Interior -- Transition in the West: The Coast -- Beringia at the Turn of the Epoch -- 12 The Great Wave of Extinctions -- Extinction Waves: When, Where, and What -- The Prehistoric Overkill Hypothesis -- The Arguments against Overkill -- Changing Environment Theories -- Extinct Birds -- PART FIVE OUR PRESENT EPOCH, THE HOLOCENE -- 13 The Great Warmth -- Some Northward Shifts of Northern Limits -- The Hypsithermal at Sea -- The Hypsithermal in the Mountains -- Refugia from the Drought -- Human Life in the Hypsithermal -- 14 The Neoglaciation -- The Spread of Muskeg -- Increased Rain in the Prairies -- The Shifting Ranges of Forest Tree Species -- The Neoglacial and the Northern Treeline -- Refugia Reestablished -- Respites in the Neoglaciation -- The Little Ice Age -- Epilogue -- Appendix 1: Names of Species: English and Latin -- Appendix 2: Names of Species: Latin and English -- Notes -- Index.