The postglacial Pleistocene of the northern Russian mainland

The paper summarizes the results of recent studies of Late Pleistocene postglacial geological events which occurred in the flatlands of northern Russia stretching from the Timan Ridge to the Laptev Sea coast. The available sedimentary record includes thawed and perennially frozen subaerial sediments and in places lacustrine and fluvial formations. Hundreds of geochronometric measurements by radiocarbon and luminescence techniques place this record within the time span of 50–11 ka BP which confirms an Early–Mid-Weichselian age of the underlying glacial complex first established by the QUEEN programme. The spectrum of proxies includes sedimentary facies, pollen data, plant macrofossils, oxygen isotope values, megafauna remains, insect assemblages, traces of DNA, paleosols and permafrost properties. Together they indicate a continental, progressively deteriorating climate with very cold winters and warmer than present summers through the second half of the Late Pleistocene. Minor climatic fluctuations are largely due to slightly changing humidity during MIS 3. These changes are more pronounced in periglacial European Russia in the vicinity of the Barents–Kara ice sheet where the Mid-Weichselian biotic maximum contrasts with conditions in the Late Weichselian polar desert. In Siberia, the periglacial environments were more stable and beneficial for biota inspite of the increased continentality. The recent data accumulated by various researchers are incompatible with the conventional correlation of the Karginsky interglacial strata of Siberia with MIS 3 or any part of the European Pleniglacial. •Postglacial Late Pleistocene history of northern Russia ca 40 ka long is reviewed.•The climate grew colder and drier reaching extreme continentality at 30–17 ka BP.•In Siberia mammoth steppe survived all climatic fluctuations including MIS 2 time.•Climate change was larger in Cis-Uralia where polar desert formed during MIS 2.•No intervals of milder climates of Holocene type have been found.