mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== Early Pleistocene There were long intervals of temperate climate, similar to or even warmer than that of today during the later Pliocene and then during the Pleistocene interglacials, these alternated with a series of increasingly cold and then glacial periods. The early Pleistocene fauna included two species of beaver (/Trogontherium cuvieri/ and /Castor fibia/), extinct species of deer, gazelle, mastodons, elephant, three toed and true horses, tapir, rhino, panda, clawless otter, hyaena and sabre-toothed cat. The European Beaver (/C. fibia/) is one of the only extant species to be represented in the British fauna of the time. Conifer forests dominated the cold phases and broad-leaved forest the temperate phases. Several species of trees that occurred in Britain at the time are now only found in Asia or North America. Such was the influence of the glacial periods that the courses of major rivers could be redirected and major drainage patterns altered. Before the commencement of the Cromerian Interglacial there was a switch in drainage pattern of a large part of southern England. The Bytham, which entered the North Sea through East Anglia, became the main river of southern England, draining much of Wales and the Midlands. The Bytham, had once been a tributary of the Thames but that river had moved southeast. The switch was either due to headwater extension of the Bytham in the Vale of Evesham and the lower Severn Valley, or erosion caused by advancing Welsh glaciers. *Previous Chapter* *Next Chapter* * * *Natural History Home Page * * * *Local History Home Page* * * *Site Home Page* * E-mail *