Boreal (age)

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Preceded by the Pleistocene
Holocene Epoch
Morning in a Pine Forest, a painting by Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky.
ICS stages/ages (official) Greenlandian (11.7*–8.236* ka) Northgrippian (8.236–4.2† ka) Meghalayan (4.2 ka–present)
Blytt–Sernander stages/ages Preboreal (10.3†–9† ka) Boreal (9–7.5† ka) Atlantic (7.5–5† ka) Subboreal (5–2.5† ka) Subatlantic (2.5 ka–present) *Relative to year 2000 (b2k). †Relative to year 1950 (BP/Before "Present").
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In paleoclimatology of the Holocene, the Boreal was the first of the Blytt–Sernander sequence of north European climatic phases that were originally based on the study of Danish peat bogs, named for Axel Blytt and Rutger Sernander, who first established the sequence. In peat bog sediments, the Boreal is also recognized by its characteristic pollen zone. It was preceded by the Younger Dryas, the last cold snap of the Pleistocene, and followed by the Atlantic, a warmer and moister period than our most recent climate. The Boreal, transitional between the two periods, varied a great deal, at times having within it climates like today's.