Plant macrofossils together with other proxy data enable to reconstruct the Eurasian vegetation history during the Quaternary proving that the climatic impact on vegetation in high latitudes is restricted not only on global temperature fluctuations but depends decisively on the oceanic influence on climate. It is shown that the climate in the Arctic during both cold and warm stages was much more continental than today, resulting in tundra-steppe or forest-steppe vegetation. The higher oceanic influence during the Holocene in the Beringian major refugium of Arctic vegetation could result from a neotectonic subsidence and transgression of the East Siberian Arctic shelves.