Hoxnian Stage in the context of Saalian Stage

The Saale glaciation or Saale Glaciation, sometimes referred to as the Saalian glaciation, Saale cold period (German: Saale-Kaltzeit), Saale complex (Saale-Komplex) or Saale glacial stage (called the Wolstonian Stage in Britain), covers the middle of the three large glaciations in Northern Europe and the northern parts of Eastern Europe, Central Europe and Western Europe by the Scandinavian Inland Ice Sheet. It follows the Holstein interglacial (Hoxnian Stage in Britain) and precedes the Eemian interglacial (globally known as the Last Interglacial and the Ipswichian in Britain), spanning from around 400,000 years ago to 130,000 years ago. The Saalian covers multiple glacial cycles punctuated by interglacial periods. In its latter part it is coeval with the global Penultimate Glacial Period.

The Wolstonian Stage is a middle Pleistocene stage of the geological history of Earth from approximately 374,000 until 130,000 years ago. It precedes the Last Interglacial (also called the Eemian Stage) and follows the Hoxnian Stage in the British Isles.

It is also approximately analogous to the Warthe and Saalian stages in northern Europe; the Riss glaciation in the Alps; and the Illinoian Stage in North America. The colder last part from around 194,000 years ago is called the Penultimate Glacial Period.

Several species of humans have intermittently occupied Great Britain for almost a million years. The earliest evidence of human occupation around 900,000 years ago is at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast, with stone tools and footprints probably made by Homo antecessor. The oldest human fossils, around 500,000 years old, are of Homo heidelbergensis at Boxgrove in Sussex. Until this time Britain had been permanently connected to the Continent by a chalk ridge between South East England and northern France called the Weald–Artois Anticline, but during the Anglian Glaciation around 425,000 years ago a megaflood broke through the ridge, and Britain became an island when sea levels rose during the following Hoxnian interglacial.

Fossils of very early Neanderthals dating to around 400,000 years ago have been found at Swanscombe in Kent, and of classic Neanderthals about 225,000 years old at Pontnewydd in Wales. Britain was unoccupied by humans between 180,000 and 60,000 years ago, when Neanderthals returned. By 40,000 years ago they had become extinct and modern humans had reached Britain. But even their occupations were brief and intermittent due to a climate which swung between low temperatures with a tundra habitat and severe ice ages which made Britain uninhabitable for long periods. The last of these, the Younger Dryas, ended around 11,700 years ago, and since then Britain has been continuously occupied.

Marine Isotope Stage 11 or MIS 11 is a Marine Isotope Stage in the geologic temperature record, covering the interglacial period between 424,000 and 374,000 years ago. It corresponds to the Hoxnian Stage in Britain.

Interglacial periods which occurred during the Pleistocene are investigated to better understand present and future climate. Thus, the present interglacial, the Holocene, is compared with MIS 11 and Marine Isotope Stage 5e.