Major progresses in the study of Quaternary glaciations have been made as the newly developed techniques that are widely used over the last one hundred years. In the pioneer stage,researchers qualitatively described glacial landscapes and glacial sedimentary properties as well as their distribution in field using the strategy of geomorphology and sedimentology. 4 to 6 traditional glaciations were divided based on the relative positions of moraines, glacial troughs, and the degrees of the weathering of glacial relicts and relevant glacial meltwater terraces. During the period of the 90s of the 20~(th) century to the first ten years of the 21~(st) century, researchers described and mapped glacial extent quantitatively using 3S techniques( GPS,GIS and RS) and combining specific field investigation, and dated moraines using radiocarbon dating, optically stimulated luminescence dating, electron spin resonance dating, cosmogenic nuclide surface exposure dating and tephrochronology. Based on these dating data and corresponding glacial extents,a global glaciation in the marine isotope stage 3 has been found,and glaciations occurred in the global Last Glaciation Maximum and the early stage of the Last Glacial period and the penultimate glaciation are also global events. The oldest glaciation occurred in 1 Ma in North America, South America and the Tibetan Plateau. At present and in the near future, simulation of response and the feedback of paleo-glaciers vs climate by using numerical modeling with combination of field demonstration will become a trend in the study of paleo-glacial area,paleo-volume and equilibrium line altitude,and refined dating techniques for moraine dating will be improved or developed for global comparison and simulation of Quaternary glaciations.