Recent
in geology, a term applied to a division of the post-Tertiary in which all the mammalia, as well as all RECIPROCAL the shells, are identical with living species. In certain places it is difficult to draw a distinction between the Recent and the Pleistocene deposits. Alluvium brought down by rivers, modern peat, the Clyde marine strata with canoes, the kitchen middens of Denmark, and the lake dwellings of Switzerland belong to the Recent period.