Pollen analysis
The term "Würm" is derived from a river in the Alpine foreland, approximately marking the maximum glacier advance of this particular glacial period. The Alps were where the first systematic scientific research on ice ages was conducted by Louis Agassiz at the beginning of the 19th century. Here the Würm glaciation of the last glacial period was intensively studied. Pollen analysis, the statistical analyses of microfossilized plant pollens found in geological deposits, chronicled the dramatic changes in the European environment during the Würm glaciation. During the height of Würm glaciation,  BP, most of western and central Europe and Eurasia was open steppe-tundra, while the Alps presented solid ice fields and montane glaciers. Scandinavia and much of Britain were under ice.