Over 250 Archaeologists Show Evidence Humans 'Transformed' Earth Long Before 1900s [View all]

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