Deep Time: An Anthropological Problem

Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 2014

What role will archaeology play in the Anthropocene – the proposed new geological epoch marked by human impact on Earth systems? That is the question discussed by thirteen archaeologists and other scholars from five continents in this thought-provoking forum. Their responses are diverse and wide-ranging. While Edward Harris looks to archaeological stratigraphy for a material paradigm of the Anthropocene, Alice Gorman explores the extent of human impact on orbital space and lunar surfaces – challenging the assumption that the Anthropocene is confined to Earth. Jeff Benjamin investigates the sounds of the Anthropocene. Paul Graves-Brown questions the idea that the epoch had its onset with the invention of the steam engine, while Mark Hudson uses Timothy Morton’s concept of hyperobjects to imagine the dark artefacts of the future. Victor Paz doubts the practical relevance of the concept to archaeological chronologies, and Bruce Clarke warns archaeologists to steer clear of the Anthropo...

STRATI 2013, 2014

With this abstract I want to share my thinking on the coming into existence of the ‘Anthropocene’ as to-be-formalised chronostratigraphical terminology. I present and frame my preferred meaning for it, and my preferred slotting: as an uppermost unit in the Holocene Series, following the Late Holocene. The Anthropocene is more or less synonym to ‘the present’ and ‘the now’ in modern earth science. It covers the time when observant scientists were around and from which we have more than geology alone to base earth scientific records on (the age of measurement). This happens to coincide with humans becoming a geological factor, mostly because mankind discovered what it could do with geology: change the earth. In that vein, I opt to link the base of the Anthropocene with the appearance of Lyell’s catchphrase ‘The Present is the Key to the Past’ in literature at 1830 AD. Defining the exact beginning of the ‘Anthropocene’ is an arbitrary matter and more or less the same as defining the Present. Linking the definition to Lyell’s key principle makes a point and has benefits. [...] CONCLUSION - By linking Lyell’s rhetoric to that of the 'Anthropocene' and define the latter as beginning in 1830 AD when the former came out, the stratigraphically defined Anthropocene becomes a concept that can work for all Earth Scientists. It also is a quick way out. It is an escape from potentially endless academic chronostratigraphical definition discussions and quests for golden spikes to pin in a boundary that is gradual in space and time, also because it sits in overly complete and too-high resolution very youngest geological record. I advocate to just be frank on the arbitrary nature of defining an exact beginning in this chronostratigraphical matter, by choosing it so that it suits geologists, and not nature or history best. After all, we do stratigraphical bookkeeping for humans who live on and study and document our changing earth – not to make earth change itself. The abstract was earlier published in the STRATI 2013 - 1st International Congres on Stratigraphy abstract volume Ciências da Terra Volume Especial VII, p.148.

2014

The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis, 2015

James Hutton invented 'deep time' through a reading of sedimentary rocks, and displaced anthropocentric chronology with a geocentric one. Some argue this 'new creation story' teaches modern humans humility and promotes greater care for life on Earth than the Jewish-Christian creation story, which they say underwrote human dominion. But the biblical creation-fall story is better understood as a warning to early-Holocene humans about the risks of overreach in their powers to domesticate plants and animals that the new era of climate stability facilitated. Recognition of the era of the Anthropocene, the era of humanly generated climate instability, has an analogous rhetorical role, warning industrial humans of a potential new eviction from their Earthbound Paradise. But if the Anthropocene is a new story of creation and fall, what is the redemption story of this new era? Scottish geologist James Hutton invented deep or geological time. He developed his theory based on long observation of soil erosion and rock strata in Scotland and was the first scientist to argue that soil erosion, combined with pressure from the ocean, create new layers of rock which over geological time are pushed up through the visible land surface by subterranean heat. His theory was

Fronteiras, 2019

This article brings attention to the need to introduce social sciences to the Global Environmental Change conversation in order to discuss the notion of the "Anthropocene" postulated by prominent natural scientists (Crutzen & Stoermer 2000; Crutzen 2002). The focus of analysis concentrates on and the way the local and the global are put into friction (Tsing 2005). If natural scientists have achieved to show the dangers Earth currently confronts, what is not yet clear is if they understand how human societies, the main driver of this geological era, work. They tend to consider humans as a specie, so they make a reductionist idea of humans as a compact unity, taking away our knowledge that teaches that they are "social" (Moore 2015). This article starts with a discussion about the apparent common understanding on the "global," by natural and social sciences. This article poses important challenges to social scientists, is critical toward the Anthropocene concept, and aspires to suggest critical thinking contributions on the global and its friction with the local. This article illustrates how, through the idea of the Anthropocene, Geology meets History in ways that are not easy to accept for social scientists because, they are right when they argue that the "anthropos" of the Anthropocene cannot be reduced to a "specie" because he/she is a socio-ecological entity.

The term Anthropocene initially emerged from the Earth System science community in the early 2000s, denoting a concept that the Holocene Epoch has terminated as a consequence of human activities. First associated with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, it was then more closely linked with the Great Acceleration in industrialization and globalization from the 1950s that fundamentally modified physical, chemical, and biological signals in geological archives. Since 2009, the Anthropocene has been evaluated by the Anthropocene Working Group, tasked with examining it for potential inclusion in the Geological Time Scale. Such inclusion requires a precisely defined chronostratigraphic and geochronological unit with a globally synchronous base and inception, with the mid-twentieth century being geologically optimal. This reflects an Earth System state in which human activities have become predominant drivers of modifications to the stratigraphic record, making it clearly distinct from the Holocene. However, more recently, the term Anthropocene has also become used for different conceptual interpretations in diverse scholarly fields, including the environmental and social sciences and humanities. These are often flexibly interpreted, commonly without reference to the geological record, and diachronous in time; they often extend much further back in time than the mid-twentieth century. These broader conceptualizations encompass wide ranges and levels of human impacts and interactions with the environment. Here, we clarify what the Anthropocene is in geological terms and compare the proposed geological (chronostratigraphic) definition with some of these broader interpretations and applications of the term "Anthropocene," showing both their overlaps and differences. Plain Language Summary The Anthropocene concept, that modern human impacts on Earth have been sufficient to bring in a new geological epoch, is only two decades old. In that short time, its use has grown explosively, not only in the Earth sciences but also far more widely to spread through the sciences generally, to spill over into the social sciences, arts, and humanities. This has led to welcome discussions between diverse scholarly communities, though also to some very different interpretations of the Anthropocene, when interpreted through different disciplinary lenses. Notably, the geological ZALASIEWICZ ET AL.

World Archaeology, 2016

Unexpected Encounters with Deep Time Enchantment. Bog Bodies, Crannogs and 'Otherworldly' sites. The materializing powers of disjunctures in time Deep time The concept of 'deep time' is rooted in challenges to officially sanctioned biblical narratives. Bishop James Ussher's edict that the earth was created in 4004 BC was challenged by James Hutton's observations on the deep stratigraphy evident in the exposed strata of Scottish sea-cliffs (McPhee 1981, 20). These observations led him to propose that the planet was much older. In fact it is 4.5 billion years old, whereas the span of humanity within this long-term history of the earth is relatively short, making it hard to grasp our place within this geological 'deep time' (McPhee 1981, 20). Chakrabarty (2009, 213-20) thus argues that in order to better understand both our situated position and responsibilities within the contemporary world with its climate and environmental problems, there is a great need to question the barriers between histories of geological deep time, natural history and that of the human. This will have major implications for how history is studied and comprehended. Such a union has the capacity to query what a world without humanity might be like, and analysing the important boundary of the 'Anthropocene', where (following the Holocene) human beings are understood to have crossed the nature:culture boundary to become one of the main actors in global geological change (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000). The present can then be understood as a key period, whereby the transformation of the earth is happening at such an accelerated rate (Steffen et al. 2015) that it could threaten the life conditions for many species on the planet.

Current Anthropology

The discovery of geologic time revolutionized scientifi c thinking and led to the development of the modern Earth sciences. Less appreciated, however, is the fact that geologic time has had far-reaching cultural and societal consequences that go well beyond its founding infl uence upon the geosciences. This essay summarizes the literature describing the diffi culties students encounter in understanding deep time, provides an overview of the historical development and cultural relevance of deep time, and suggests ways to increase students' understanding of the signifi cance of geologic time.