Get ready for a two-part exploration of the proposed "Anthropocene" era. Can we define a chunk of geological time based on human impacts? When would that start--at the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s (CE)? Earlier? Later? More importantly...should we even try? Plus, we learn about industrial archaeology and get briefly derailed by a man named Frerb Hankbert. Make sure to stay tuned for the second installment!
To learn more about what we cover in both parts, check out:
Geologists Vote to Reject Anthropocene as an Official Epoch (Center for Field Sciences)
Anthropocene (Oxford English Dictionary)
GSA Geologic Time Scale v. 4.0
The “Anthropocene” (International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme Newsletter)
How Long Have We Been in the Anthropocene? (SAPIENS)
Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use (Science)
Humans versus Earth: the quest to define the Anthropocene (Nature)
Early onset of industrial-era warming across the oceans and continents (Nature)
The Industrial Revolution kick-started global warming much earlier than we realised (The Conversation)
The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Archaeology (via WorldCat)
Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass (Nature)
An anthropogenic marker horizon in the future rock record (GSA Today)
The Technofossil Record: Where Archaeology and Paleontology Meet (Anthropocene Curriculum)
Defining the Anthropocene (Nature)
Davis, H., & Todd, Z. (2017). On the Importance of a Date, or, Decolonizing the Anthropocene. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 16(4), 761–780.
