Preboreal

The Preboreal is an informal stage of the Holocene epoch. It came after the Tarantian and before the Boreal. It lasted from 10,300 to 9,000 BP in radiocarbon years, or from about 8350 BC to 7050 BC in our regular calendar years, during the 8th millennium BC. It was the first stage of the Holocene epoch.

The Preboreal was originally proposed in 1972, but as scientists learned more about dating and layers of Earth, the exact dates might look different today. Some scientists now talk about the Early, Middle, and Late Holocene instead.

In July 2018, the International Commission on Stratigraphy chose Greenlandian as the official name for the first age of the Holocene. This new name overlaps a lot with the older European term Preboreal.