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"Edgeworth, Matt"
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The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene
Humans are undoubtedly altering many geological processes on Earth—and have been for some time. But what is the stratigraphic evidence for officially distinguishing this new human-dominated time period, termed the “Anthropocene,” from the preceding Holocene epoch? Waters
et al.
review climatic, biological, and geochemical signatures of human activity in sediments and ice cores. Combined with deposits of new materials and radionuclides, as well as human-caused modification of sedimentary processes, the Anthropocene stands alone stratigraphically as a new epoch beginning sometime in the mid–20th century.
Science
, this issue p.
10.1126/science.aad2622
Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth. Vigorous debate continues about whether this warrants recognition as a new geologic time unit known as the Anthropocene. We review anthropogenic markers of functional changes in the Earth system through the stratigraphic record. The appearance of manufactured materials in sediments, including aluminum, plastics, and concrete, coincides with global spikes in fallout radionuclides and particulates from fossil fuel combustion. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles have been substantially modified over the past century. Rates of sea-level rise and the extent of human perturbation of the climate system exceed Late Holocene changes. Biotic changes include species invasions worldwide and accelerating rates of extinction. These combined signals render the Anthropocene stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene and earlier epochs.
Journal Article
Grounded objects. Archaeology and speculative realism
The philosophical movement known as speculative realism (SR) has much in common with archaeology. As well as a shared concern with objects and with time, both have orientations towards an external reality that exists (or existed) outside the domain of human knowledge. This paper explores overlaps and commonalities in these two very different types of investigation. Proceeding from an archaeological perspective, it critically assesses the relevance of some of the key ideas of SR for archaeology, while also looking at ways in which these can be challenged, honed, adapted and transformed through encounters with archaeological objects. It asks the question, what can archaeology usefully contribute to the SR project?
Journal Article
The Anthropocene: a conspicuous stratigraphical signal of anthropogenic changes in production and consumption across the biosphere
Biospheric relationships between production and consumption of biomass have been resilient to changes in the Earth system over billions of years. This relationship has increased in its complexity, from localized ecosystems predicated on anaerobic microbial production and consumption to a global biosphere founded on primary production from oxygenic photoautotrophs, through the evolution of Eukarya, metazoans, and the complexly networked ecosystems of microbes, animals, fungi, and plants that characterize the Phanerozoic Eon (the last ∼541 million years of Earth history). At present, one species, Homo sapiens, is refashioning this relationship between consumption and production in the biosphere with unknown consequences. This has left a distinctive stratigraphy of the production and consumption of biomass, of natural resources, and of produced goods. This can be traced through stone tool technologies and geochemical signals, later unfolding into a diachronous signal of technofossils and human bioturbation across the planet, leading to stratigraphically almost isochronous signals developing by the mid‐20th century. These latter signals may provide an invaluable resource for informing and constraining a formal Anthropocene chronostratigraphy, but are perhaps yet more important as tracers of a biosphere state that is characterized by a geologically unprecedented pattern of global energy flow that is now pervasively influenced and mediated by humans, and which is necessary for maintaining the complexity of modern human societies.
Key Points
Humans refashioning relationship between production and consumption in the biosphere
Biosphere characterized by pattern of global energy flow pervasively influenced by humans
Changes consistent with the biosphere entering a new stage of its evolution
Journal Article
Further notes on the archaeological object
Assaf Nativ argues that it is time to deepen and broaden our understanding of the archaeological object, and to make it more explicit. I find the general argument of the paper compelling. Following on from the insights contained therein, it seems to me that there are three principal aspects of the archaeological object that urgently need to be reappraised: (1) temporal range, (2) spatial scale and (3) ecological effectivity.
Journal Article
On the agency of rivers
Veronica Strang has written an excellent account of the fluid relationships between humans and the non-human materiality of water. The very idea of anthropology of water challenges our commonly held assumptions about water being just a material or economic resource (or, conversely, about anthropology being just the study of people). It holds that water is socially, politically and ritually constituted, while acknowledging at the same time that water also has an existence outside the human domain. There is much to agree with and to be inspired by in the paper, which is especially strong on ‘fluidity and consistency at every level of human–non-human engagement’ (p. 133). By virtue of the emphasis on that specific aspect, however, there are some aspects which are underemphasized, and it is these which I focus on in my comments.
Journal Article
Excavation as a ground of archaeological knowledge
In answering the question ‘why excavate?’, much of the discussion in this stimulating session was pitched at the level of managerial considerations (in commercial archaeology) or the pros and cons of excavation for the discipline as a whole (in academic archaeology), with some attention paid to issues of publication. While acknowledging the great importance of that debate, and the many interesting points put forward, I would like to suggest that excavation also has significance for archaeologists on a much deeper, existential, level.
Journal Article
Stratigraphic and Earth System approaches to defining the Anthropocene
Stratigraphy provides insights into the evolution and dynamics of the Earth System over its long history. With recent developments in Earth System science, changes in Earth System dynamics can now be observed directly and projected into the near future. An integration of the two approaches provides powerful insights into the nature and significance of contemporary changes to Earth. From both perspectives, the Earth has been pushed out of the Holocene Epoch by human activities, with the mid‐20th century a strong candidate for the start date of the Anthropocene, the proposed new epoch in Earth history. Here we explore two contrasting scenarios for the future of the Anthropocene, recognizing that the Earth System has already undergone a substantial transition away from the Holocene state. A rapid shift of societies toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals could stabilize the Earth System in a state with more intense interglacial conditions than in the late Quaternary climate regime and with little further biospheric change. In contrast, a continuation of the present Anthropocene trajectory of growing human pressures will likely lead to biotic impoverishment and a much warmer climate with a significant loss of polar ice.
Key Points
Stratigraphy and Earth System science have built a multidisciplinary approach for understanding Earth evolution, including the advent of the Anthropocene.
Both approaches provide strong evidence that human activities have pushed the Earth into the Anthropocene, starting from the mid‐20th century.
Potential scenarios for the future Anthropocene range from more intense interglacial conditions to a greenhouse state with much less polar ice.
Journal Article
Micropalaeontology reveals the source of building materials for a defensive earthwork (English Civil War?) at Wallingford Castle, Oxfordshire
Microfossils recovered from sediment used to construct a putative English Civil War defensive bastion at Wallingford Castle, south Oxfordshire, provide a biostratigraphical age of Cretaceous (earliest Cenomanian) basal M. mantelli Biozone. The rock used in the buttress--which may have housed a gun emplacement--can thus be tracked to the Glauconitic Marl Member, base of the West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation. A supply of this rock is available on the castle site or to the east of the River Thames near Crowmarsh Gifford. Microfossils provide a unique means to provenance construction materials used at the Wallingford site. While serendipity may have been the chief cause for use of the Glauconitic Marl, when compacted, it forms a strong, almost \"road base\"-like foundation that was clearly of use for constructing defensive works. Indeed, use of the Glauconitic Marl was widespread in the area for agricultural purposes and its properties may have been well-known locally.
Journal Article
Excavating a taskscape, flowscape and ceramiscene in the Black Country
This paper narrates the story of an archaeological excavation of a pottery production site as it unfolded through time. The site was on the outskirts of the historic core of the town of Wednesbury in the Black Country. A team from Birmingham University Field Archaeology unit carried out the work in a two month period from September to November, 2006, in advance of the construction of a filling station and supermarket.
The concept of the taskscape (Ingold 1993) is well-known and needs little introduction. As Ingold states: ‘just as the landscape is an array of related features, so – by analogy
Book Chapter