We present the first comprehensive late Quaternary record of North American Great Plains temperature by assessing the behavior of the stable isotopic composition (δ¹³C) of buried soils. After examining the relationship between the δ¹³C of topsoil organic matter and July temperature from 61 native prairies within a latitudinal range of 46°–38°N, we applied the resulting regression equation to 64 published δ¹³C values from buried soils of the same region to construct a temperature curve for the past 12 k.y. Estimated temperatures from 12 to 10 ka (1 k.y. = 1000 ¹⁴C yr B.P.) fluctuated with a periodicity of ∼1 k.y. with two cool excursions between −4.5 and −3.5 °C and two warmer excursions between −1 and 0 °C, relative to modern. Early Holocene temperatures from ca. 10–7.5 ka were −1.0 to −2.0 °C before rising to +1.0 °C in the middle Holocene between 6.0 and 4.5 ka. After a cool interlude from 4.2 to 2.6 ka, when temperatures dropped to slightly below modern, another warm interval ensued from 2.6 to 1 ka as temperatures increased to ∼+0.5 °C. A final decline in temperature to below modern occurred beginning ca. 0.5 ka. Cooler than present temperatures in the Great Plains indicate telecommunications with cool-water episodes in the Gulf of Mexico and North Atlantic potentially governed by a combination of glacial meltwater pulses and low solar irradiance.