Over 250 Archaeologists Show Evidence Humans 'Transformed' Earth Long Before 1900s

[Judi Lynn]

BEN MARWICK & ERLE C. ELLIS, THE CONVERSATION 30 AUG 2019

Examples of how human societies are changing the planet abound – from building roads and houses, clearing forests for agriculture and digging train tunnels, to shrinking the ozone layer, driving species extinct, changing the climate and acidifying the oceans.


Human impacts are everywhere. Our societies have changed Earth so much that it's impossible to reverse many of these effects.

Some researchers believe these changes are so big that they mark the beginning of a new "human age" of Earth history, the Anthropocene epoch.

A committee of geologists has now proposed to mark the start of the Anthropocene in the mid-20th century, based on a striking indicator: the widely scattered radioactive dust from nuclear bomb tests in the early 1950s.

But this is not the final word.

Not everyone is sure that today's industrialized, globalized societies will be around long enough to define a new geological epoch. Perhaps we are just a flash in the pan – an event – rather than a long, enduring epoch.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/archaeologists-are-arguing-about-exactly-when-we-started-the-anthropocene

[mr_lebowski]

1. Won't really matter what the hell us humans 'called it' ... when this 'event' or 'epoch'

known as 'the era of human society' is over, will it now?

Given 'geologic timescales', I'm inclined to call what the planet is going through an 'event', but once we wipe ourselves all out in the next 100 years or so, it won't matter one whit what we decided to call it.

Won't be any 'intelligent species' around to 'read about it' for probably another hundred million years or so ...

[cstanleytech]

2. Oh I doubt we will wipe ourselves out. Don't get me wrong it will be rough and we likely lose most

if not all of our current high tech but we are an extremely versatile species with the ability to come up with solutions to adapt to a wide range of conditions.
About the only thing that would wipe our species out any time soon other than a massive nuclear exchange is if the carbon dioxide or oxygen levels were to reach levels that are intolerable for us to breath at all.