The latest geological epoch of the Tertiary period; the epoch dating between c 5 million years ago and the beginning of the Pleistocene (c 1.8 million years ago). During the Pliocene, mammals such as the elephant, horse, ox, and deer appeared, in addition to ancestors of man. It followed the Miocene. There was a separation of the Homo genus and the Australopithecus genus; the first worked tools and the first camps. It is often divided into the Early Pliocene Epoch (5.3 to 3.4 million years ago) and the Late Pliocene Epoch (3.4 to 1.8 million years ago). The Pliocene is also subdivided into two ages and their corresponding rock stages - the Zanclean and the Piacenzian.