1932

Abstract

Archaeological evidence of human-influenced transformations of physical strata and the Earth system provides strong support to the broad concept of the Anthropocene, yet it also presents a powerful material challenge to some of its most entrenched assumptions. This substantial and growing body of time-transgressive evidence has the potential to radically alter the concept from the ground up and to provide a literal ground on which interdisciplinary collaboration among the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities can take place.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-101819-110118
2021-10-21
2024-05-09
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/anthro/50/1/annurev-anthro-101819-110118.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-101819-110118&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Balter M. 2013. Archaeologists say the ‘Anthropocene’ is here—but it began long ago. Science 340:6130261–62
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Barrett JC. 2021. Archaeology and Its Discontents: Why Archaeology Matters London: Routledge:
  3. Bauer AM, Bhan M. 2018. Climate Without Nature: A Critical Anthropology of the Anthropocene Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  4. Bauer AM, Ellis EC. 2018. The Anthropocene Divide: obscuring understanding of social-environmental change. Curr. Anthropol. 59:2209–27
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bennett CE, Thomas R, Williams M, Zalasiewicz J, Edgeworth M et al. 2018. The broiler chicken as a signal of a human reconfigured biosphere. R. Soc. Open Sci. 5:180325
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Bini M, Pappalardo M, Rossi V, Noti V, Amorosi A, Sarti J 2018. Deciphering the effects of human activity on urban areas through morphostratigraphic analysis: the case of Pisa, Northwest Italy. Geoarchaeology 33:43–51
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Boivin N, Crowther A. 2021. Mobilizing the past to shape a better Anthropocene. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 5:273–84
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Boyd B. 2018. An archaeological telling of multispecies co-inhabitation: comments on the origins of agriculture and domestication narrative in Southwest Asia. See Pillar Birch 2018 251–70
  9. Braje TJ. 2015. Earth systems, human agency, and the Anthropocene: planet Earth in the Human Age. J. Archaeol. Res. 23:369–96
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Braje TJ. 2016. Evaluating the Anthropocene: Is there something useful about a geological epoch of humans?. Antiquity 90:504–12
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Braje TJ. 2018. The Anthropocene as process: why we should view the state of the world through a deep historical lens. Rev. Estud. Pesqui. Av. Terc. Set 1:4–20
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Braje TJ, Erlandson JM. 2013. Looking forward, looking back: humans, anthropogenic change, and the Anthropocene. Anthropocene 4:116–21
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Braje TJ, Erlandson JM, Aikens CM, Beach T, Fitzpatrick S et al. 2014. An Anthropocene without archaeology—should we care?. SAA Archaeol. Rec. 14:126–29
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Brand JH, Spencer KL, O'Shea FT, Lindsay JE 2018. Potential pollution risks of historic landfills on low-lying coasts and estuaries. WIREs Water 5:e1264
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Capelotti PJ. 2010. The Human Archaeology of Space: Lunar, Planetary and Interstellar Relics of Exploration Jefferson, NC: McFarland
  16. Catlin KA. 2016. Archaeology for the Anthropocene: scale, soil, and the settlement of Iceland. Anthropocene 15:13–21
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Certini G, Scalenghe R. 2011. Anthropogenic soils are the golden spikes for the Anthropocene. Holocene 21:81269–74
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Certini G, Scalenghe R. 2021. Soil is the best testifier of the diachronous dawn of the Anthropocene. J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci. 184:218386
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Clark N, Szerszynski B. 2021. Planetary Social Thought: The Anthropocene Challenge to the Social Sciences Cambridge, UK: Polity
  20. Clarke B. 2014.. “ The Anthropocene,” or Gaia shrugs. J. Contemp. Archaeol. 1:1101–4
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Cohen KM, Finney SC, Gibbard PL, Fan J-X 2013. The ICS International Chronostratigraphic Chart. Episodes 36:199–204
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Crossland Z. 2014. Anthropocene: locating agency, imagining the future. J. Contemp. Archaeol. 1:1123–28
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Crutzen PJ, Stoermer EF. 2000. The Anthropocene. Glob. Change Newsl 41:17–18
    [Google Scholar]
  24. de Oliveira EA, Marimon-Junior BH, Marimon BS, Iriarte J, Morandi PS et al. 2020. Legacy of Amazonian Dark Earth soils on forest structure and species composition. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 29:1458–73
    [Google Scholar]
  25. de Souza JG, Schaan DP, Robinson M, Barbosa AD, Aragão LEOC et al. 2018. Pre-Columbian earth-builders settled along the entire southern rim of the Amazon. Nat. Commun. 9:1125
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Denizen S 2013. Three holes in the geological present. Architecture in the Anthropocene: encounters among design, deep time, science and philosophy E Turpin 29–46 Ann Arbor, MI: Open Humanit. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Dixon EJ, Callanan ME, Hafner A, Hare PG. 2014. The emergence of glacial archaeology. J. Glacial Archaeol. 1:1–9
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Edgeworth M. 2010. Beyond human proportions: archaeology of the mega and the nano. Archaeologies 6:1138–49
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Edgeworth M. 2014. The relationship between archaeological stratigraphy and artificial ground and its significance in the Anthropocene. See Waters et al. 2014 91–108
  30. Edgeworth M 2017. Humanly modified ground. The Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene DA DellaSala, MI Goldstein 157–61 Oxford, UK: Elsevier
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Edgeworth M. 2018. More than just a record: active ecological effects of archaeological strata. Historical Archaeology and Environment MA Torres De Souza, DM Costa 19–40 Cham, Switz: Springer
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Edgeworth M, Ellis EC, Gibbard P, Neal C, Ellis M. 2019. The chronostratigraphic method is unsuitable for determining the start of the Anthropocene. Prog. Phys. Geogr. Earth Environ. 43:3334–44
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Edgeworth M, Richter D, Waters C, Haff P, Neal C, Price SJ 2015. Diachronous beginnings of the Anthropocene: the lower bounding surface of anthropogenic deposits. Anthropocene Rev 2:133–58
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Elhacham E, Ben-Uri L, Grozovski J, Bar-On YM, Milo R 2020. Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass. Nature 588:442–44
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Ellis EC. 2011. Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 369:1010–35
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Erlandson JM. 2013. Shell middens and other anthropogenic soils as global stratigraphic signatures of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene 4:24–32
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Erlandson JM, Braje TJ. 2013. Archaeology and the Anthropocene. Anthropocene 4:1–7
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Finney SC, Edwards LE. 2016. The “Anthropocene” epoch: scientific decision or political statement?. GSA Today 26:4–10
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Foley SF, Gronenborn D, Andreae MO, Kadereit JW, Esper J et al. 2013. The Palaeoanthropocene—the beginnings of anthropogenic environmental change. Anthropocene 3:83–88
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Fuller DQ, van Etten J, Manning K, Castillo C, Kingwell-Banham E et al. 2011. The contribution of rice agriculture and livestock to prehistoric methane levels: an archaeological assessment. Holocene 21:5743–59
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Glikson A. 2013. Fire and human evolution: the deep-time blueprints of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene 3:89–92
    [Google Scholar]
  42. González-Ruibal A. 2018a. An Archaeology of the Contemporary Era London:: Routledge
  43. González-Ruibal A. 2018b. Beyond the Anthropocene: defining the Age of Destruction. Nor. Archaeol. Rev. 51:21–12
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Gorman AC. 2005. The archaeology of orbital space. Australian Space Science Conference 2005338–57 Melbourne, Aust: RMIT Univ.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Gorman AC. 2014. The Anthropocene in the solar system. J. Contemp. Archaeol. 1:187–91
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Graves-Brown P, Harrison R, Piccini A 2013. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  47. Harris EC. 1989. Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy London: Academic, 2nd ed..
  48. Harris EC. 2014. Archaeological stratigraphy: a paradigm for the Anthropocene. J. Contemp. Archaeol. 1:1105–9
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Harrison R, Schofield J. 2010. After Modernity: Archaeological Approaches to the Contemporary Past Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  50. Harrison R, Sterling C 2020. Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage in, of and after the Anthropocene London: Open Humanit. Press
  51. Hodder I. 2012. Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships Between Humans and Things Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell
  52. Holtorf C, Högberg A. 2016. The contemporary archaeology of nuclear waste: communicating with the future. Arkæologisk Forum 35:31–37
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Horn E, Bergthaller H. 2020. The Anthropocene: Key Issues for the Humanities London: Routledge
  54. Hudson BJ. 1996. Cities On The Shore: The Urban Littoral Frontier London: Pinter
  55. Hudson MJ. 2014. Dark artifacts: hyperobjects and the archaeology of the Anthropocene. J. Contemp. Archaeol. 1:182–86
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Kidder TR, Zhuang Y. 2015. Anthropocene archaeology of the Yellow River, China, 5000–2000 BP. Holocene 25:101627–39
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Kluiving SJ, Hamel A. 2016. How can archaeology help us unravel the Anthropocene?. RCC Perspect 5:55–62
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Lane PJ. 2015. Archaeology in the age of the Anthropocene: a critical assessment of its scope and societal contributions. J. Field Archaeol. 40:5485–98
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Lewis SL, Maslin MA. 2015. Defining the Anthropocene. Nature 519:171–80
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Lombardo U, Iriarte J, Hilbert L, Ruiz-Pérez J, Capriles JM, Veit H. 2020. Early Holocene crop cultivation and landscape modification in Amazonia. Nature 581:7807190–93
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Luberti GM. 2018. Computation of modern anthropogenic-deposit thicknesses in urban areas: a case study in Rome, Italy. Anthropocene Rev 5:12–27
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Masoud F. 2021. Terra Sorta Firma: Reclaiming the Littoral Gradient New York: Actar
  63. Menze BH, Ur JA 2012. Mapping patterns of long-term settlement in Northern Mesopotamia at a large scale. PNAS 109:14E778–87
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Morton T. 2013. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. Press
  65. Olivier L. 2020. Interpreting archaeological evidence in the Anthropocene. Incidentality and meaning. Camb. Archaeol. J. 30:1160–63
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Parikka J. 2012. What Is Media Archaeology? Cambridge, UK: Polity Press
  67. Paz VJ. 2014. Archaeology and Anthropocene discourses. J. Contemp. Archaeol. 1:1110–13
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Peloggia A, Luz RA, Ortega A, Edgeworth M. 2017. The expansion of the urban geological stratum (Archaeosphere) in the east of the State of São Paulo: the relationship between history, geography, geology and archaeology in the Anthropocene. Rev. Bras. Geogr. 62:225–52
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Periman RD 2006. Visualizing the Anthropocene: human land use history and environmental management. Monitoring Science and Technology Symposium: Unifying Knowledge for Sustainability in the Western Hemisphere C Aguirre-Bravo, PJ Pellicane, DP Burns, S Draggan 558–64 Fort Collins, CO: US Dep. Agric.
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Perry SE, Morgan CL. 2015. Materializing media archaeologies: the MAD-P hard drive excavation. J. Contemp. Archaeol. 2:194–104
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Pétursdóttir Þ. 2017. Climate change? Archaeology and Anthropocene. Archaeol. Dialogues 24:2175–205
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Pétursdóttir Þ. 2020. Anticipated futures? Knowing the heritage of drift matter. Int. J. Herit. Stud. 26:187–103
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Pilaar Birch SE 2018. Multispecies Archaeology London: Routledge
  74. Price SJ, Ford JR, Cooper AH, Neal C. 2011. Humans as major geological and geomorphological agents in the Anthropocene: the significance of artificial ground in Great Britain. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 369:1056–84
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Rathje W, Murphy C. 1992. Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage New York: HarperCollins
  76. Richter D. 2020. Game changer in soil science. The Anthropocene in soil science and pedology. J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci. 183:5–11
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Rick TC, Sandweiss DH 2020. Archaeology, climate, and global change in the Age of Humans. PNAS 117:158250–53
    [Google Scholar]
  78. Roosevelt AC. 2013. The Amazon and the Anthropocene: 13,000 years of human influence in a tropical rainforest. Anthropocene 4:69–87
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Ruddiman WF. 2003. The Anthropogenic greenhouse era began thousands of years ago. Clim. Change 61:261–93
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Ruddiman WF. 2007. The early anthropogenic hypothesis: challenges and responses. Rev. Geophys. 45:RG4001
    [Google Scholar]
  81. Schiffer MB. 1996. Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record Salt Lake City: Univ. Utah Press
  82. Sherlock RL. 1922. Man as a Geological Agent: An Account of His Action on Inanimate Nature London: H. F. & G. Witherby
  83. Simonetti C. 2019. The petrified Anthropocene. Theory Cult. Soc. 36:7–845–66
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Skeates R. 2012. On the noble digger's ode to the trowel. Nor. Archaeol. Rev 45:1102–3
    [Google Scholar]
  85. Smith BD, Zeder MA. 2013. The onset of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene 4:8–13
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Smith C, Lowther J, Ralph J 2020. Archaeology of modern material culture. Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology C Smith 7330–40 New York: Springer
    [Google Scholar]
  87. Solli B, Burström M, Domanska E, Edgeworth M, Gonzáles-Ruibal A et al. 2011. Some reflections on heritage and archaeology in the Anthropocene. Nor. Archaeol. Rev 44:140–88
    [Google Scholar]
  88. Steffen W, Broadgate W, Deutsch L, Gaffney O, Ludwig C. 2015. The trajectory of the Anthropocene: the Great Acceleration. Anthropocene Rev 2:181–98
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Steffen W, Leinfelder R, Zalasiewicz J, Waters CN, Williams M et al. 2016. Stratigraphic and Earth System approaches to defining the Anthropocene. Earth's Future 4:324–45
    [Google Scholar]
  90. Stephens L, Ellis E, Fuller D 2020. The deep Anthropocene. Aeon Oct. 1. https://aeon.co/essays/revolutionary-archaeology-reveals-the-deepest-possible-anthropocene
    [Google Scholar]
  91. Stephens L, Fuller D, Boivin N, Rick T, Gauthier N et al. 2019. Archaeological assessment reveals Earth's early transformation through land use. Science 365:6456897–902
    [Google Scholar]
  92. Suess E. 1862. Der Boden der Stadt Wien Vienna: W. Braumüller
  93. Tarolli P, Preti F, Romano N. 2014. Terraced landscapes: from an old best practice to a potential hazard for soil degradation due to land abandonment. Anthropocene 6:10–25
    [Google Scholar]
  94. Turner BL II, Kasperson RE, Meyer WB, Dow KM, Golding D et al. 1990. Two types of global environmental change: definitional and spatial-scale issues in their human dimensions. Glob. Environ. Change 1:114–22
    [Google Scholar]
  95. Walter RC. 2011. 2011 Kirk Bryan Award presented to Robert C. Walter and Dorothy J. Merrits Response, Geol. Soc. Am., Boulder, CO https://www.geosociety.org/awards/11speeches/kirkbryan.htm#response-walter
  96. Walter RC, Merritts DJ. 2008. Natural streams and the legacy of water-powered mills. Science 319:5861299–304
    [Google Scholar]
  97. Waters CN, Zalasiewicz J, Summerhayes CP, Barnosky AD, Poirier C et al. 2016. The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene. Science 351:aad2622
    [Google Scholar]
  98. Waters CN, Zalasiewicz J, Williams M, Ellis MA, Snelling AM 2014. A Stratigraphical Basis for the Anthropocene Geol. Soc. London Spec. Publ. 395 London: Geol. Soc. London
  99. Watling J, Iriarte J, Mayle FE, Schaan D, Pessenda LCR et al. 2017. Impact of pre-Columbian “geoglyph” builders on Amazonian forests. PNAS 114:81868–73
    [Google Scholar]
  100. Whitridge P. 2016. Fractal worlds: an archaeology of nested spatial scales. Arctic 69: https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic4659
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  101. Williams M, Edgeworth M, Zalasiewicz J, Waters CN, Steffen W et al. 2020. Underground metro systems: a durable geological proxy of rapid urban population growth and energy consumption during the Anthropocene. Routledge Companion to Big History C Benjamin, E Quaedackers, D Baker 434–55 Abingdon, UK: Routledge
    [Google Scholar]
  102. Witmore C. 2014. Archaeology, the Anthropocene, and the Hypanthropocene. J. Contemp. Archaeol. 1:1128–32
    [Google Scholar]
  103. Woodfill BKS 2019. An archaeologist writes against the Anthropocene. Open Rivers 2019(14). https://editions.lib.umn.edu/openrivers/article/against-the-anthropocene/
    [Google Scholar]
  104. Zalasiewicz J, Waters CN, Williams M. 2014a. Human bioturbation, and the subterranean landscape of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene 6:3–9
    [Google Scholar]
  105. Zalasiewicz J, Waters CN, Williams M, Summerhayes CP 2019. The Anthropocene as a Geological Time Unit: A Guide to the Scientific Evidence and Current Debate Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  106. Zalasiewicz J, Williams M, Waters CN, Barnosky AD, Haff P. 2014b. The technofossil record of humans. Anthropocene Rev 1:34–43
    [Google Scholar]
  107. Zalasiewicz J, Williams M, Waters CN, Barnosky AD, Palmesino J et al. 2017. Scale and diversity of the physical technosphere: a geological perspective. Anthropocene Rev 4:19–22
    [Google Scholar]
  108. Zarankin A, Salerno MA. 2014. The “wild” continent? Some discussions on the Anthropocene in Antarctica. J. Contemp. Archaeol. 1:1114–18
    [Google Scholar]
  109. Zhuang Y, Kidder TR. 2014. Archaeology of the Anthropocene in the Yellow River region, China, 8000–2000 cal. BP Holocene 24:111602–23
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-101819-110118
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error