Saale glaciation
![Maximum extent (Drenthe stadium) of the Saale complex (yellow line). The red line shows the greatest extent of the younger Weichselian glaciation.](/Images/godic/202502/08/EisrandlagenNorddeutschland3800.jpg")
![The Würm glaciation (in the north:the Weichselian) in comparison with the Riss (in the north:the Saale). The glacial advances were interrupted by warmer periods during which ancient European man (the Neanderthals, as successors of homo heidelbergensis) spread out from the mountain zones and over the permafrost boundary to the north and northeast. From about 40,000 B. C. modern Cro-Magnon man settled these regions.](/Images/godic/202502/08/SaaleWeichsel_x3800.png")
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 (Saale-Glazial, colloquially also the Saale-Eiszeit or Saale-Zeit), covers the middle of the three large glaciations in Northern Europe and the northern parts of Eastern, Central and Western Europe by the Scandinavian Inland Ice Sheet between the older Elster glaciation and the younger Weichselian glaciation.