A mid-twentieth-century Anthropocene makes the Holocene more important than ever.

Braje, Todd J.

I thank all the authors for their thoughtful responses to my paper. I believe they effectively highlight some of the diverse opinions about the concept of the Anthropocene and underscore the challenges faced by the ICS subcommission.

Both Dalby and Zalasiewicz and Waters rightly argue that Paul Crutzen first proposed the Anthropocene to designate the scale of Earth system changes as part of the geological lexicon. They argue, then, that the Anthropocene should be defined as a geochronological unit if there exists a recognisable chronostratigraphic unit. As a strictly geological term, the Anthropocene is being evaluated on the basis of biotic, geochemical and other hard rock standards that might make it distinct from the Holocene. Their views follow a number of articles by members of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) that focus on identifying golden spikes and contend that a mid-twentieth-century Anthropocene boundary is stratigraphically optimal' (e.g. Steffen et al. 2007, 2015; Waters et al. 2016), where anthropogenic materials become globally visible.

In restricting the Anthropocene debate to geological designations, a large and growing body of literature by archaeologists and other historical scientists is overlooked, much of which holds that the Anthropocene and the Holocene are largely synonymous. The AWG's focus on the mid-twentieth-century culmination or maturation of processes that began during the Holocene or even at its onset (i.e. domestication) is surprising. Most of the processes (extinction, domestication, sedimentation and so on) used to identify a chronostratigraphic unit for the Anthropocene and argue for a mid-twentieth-century boundary (radionuclides and others are notable exceptions) began deep in the Holocene. In this sense, the processes of the Holocene that created the Anthropocene are largely cast aside for a mid-twentieth-century date. For Zalasiewicz, Waters and other members of the AWG, such a designation does not neglect deep historical processes. For me, however, this designation renders the Anthropocene largely a mystery that is only 50 years young. It will be the Holocene that can tell us about the long, complex and dynamic roles humans have played in creating the Anthropocene, making the Holocene more important than ever.

Randall eloquently describes the frustration of many historical and social scientists with the Anthropocene debate's focus on golden spikes, origins and traditional Western dichotomies. This exercise seems as fruitless as trying to identify the precise moment when orange turns to red on the colour spectrum. Shedding our focus on geochronological standards and concentrating on the Anthropocene's conceptual merits can help to define a problem-oriented, interdisciplinary course of study that engages with coupled humannatural systems in a more practical and meaningful way.

With the push towards a mid-twentieth-century definition, I hope that the AWG will more critically engage with archaeologists and other social scientists about the Anthropocene. I also hope that much of the Anthropocene debate can turn away from geological standards and markers to ways in which we can work together to figure out how we are going to transcend its many challenges.

doi: 10.15184/aqy.2016.62

Acknowledgements

I thank Torben Rick for his help with this response and constructive feedback on an earlier version.

References

Steffen, W, P. Crutzen & J. McNeill. 2007. The Anthropocene: are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature? AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 36: 614-21.

Steffen, W, W Broadgate, L. Deutsch, O. Gaffney & C. Ludwig. 2015. The trajectory of the Anthropocene: the great acceleration. The Anthropocene Review 2: 81-98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2053019614564785

Waters, C.N., J. Zalasiewicz, C. Summerhayes, A.D. Barnosky, C. Poirier, A. Galuszka, A. Cearreta, M. Edgeworth, E.C. Ellis, C. Jeandel, R. Leinfelder, J.R. McNeill, D. deB. Richter, W. Steffen, J. Syvitski, D. Vidas, M. Wagreich, M. Williams, Z. An, J. Grinvald, E. Odada, N. Oreskes & A.P. WOLFE. 2016. The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene. Science 35 L: 137-40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aad2622

Todd J. Braje, Department of Anthropology, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-6040, USA (Email: tbraje@mail.sdsu.edu)