The period of geologic time starting 1.6 million years ago and continuing to the present day. It is the most recent geological period and is the time when human beings arrived on Earth. It is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene the Holocene with the division between these two falling at about 10,000 years before the present.

the period of geologic time from about 2 million years to the present day. The Quarternary is the second period of the Cenozoic era.