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)

Anthropocene Curriculum

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.

Whyte, Kyle. "Indigenous Climate Change Studies : Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene." English Language Notes, vol. 55 no. 1, 2017, p. 153-162. Project MUSE.

Mass Deaths in Americas Start New CO2 Epoch (Scientific American)

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change (Science)

Capitalocene (Progress in Political Economy)

Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin (Environmental Humanities)