Holocene calendar
Part of a series on |
Human history Human Era |
---|
↑ Prehistory (Stone Age) (Pleistocene epoch) |
↓ Future |
The Holocene calendar, also known as the Holocene Era or Human Era (HE), is a
Overview
Cesare Emiliani's proposal for a calendar reform sought to solve a number of alleged problems with the current Anno Domini era, also called the Common Era, which number the years of the commonly accepted world calendar. These issues include:
- The Anno Domini era is based on the makes more sense.
- The birth date of Jesus is a less universally relevant epoch eventthan the approximate beginning of the Holocene.
- The years BC/BCE are counted down when moving from past to future, making calculation of time spans difficult.
- The Anno Domini era has no year "zero", with 1 BC followed immediately by AD 1, complicating the calculation of timespans further.
Instead, HE uses the "beginning of human era" as its
This is a rough approximation of the start of the currentBenefits
Human Era proponents claim that it makes for easier
Accuracy
When Emiliani discussed the calendar in a follow-up article in 1994, he mentioned that there was no agreement on the date of the start of the Holocene epoch, with estimates at the time ranging between 12,700 and 10,970 years BP.[5] Since then, scientists have improved their understanding of the Holocene on the evidence of ice cores and can now more accurately date its beginning. A consensus view was formally adopted by the IUGS in 2013, placing its start at 11,700 years before 2000 (9701 BC), about 300 years more recent than the epoch of the Holocene calendar.[6]
Equivalent proposals
In 1924 Gabriel Deville proposed the use of Calendrier nouveau de chronologie ancienne (CNCA), which would start 10,000 years before AD 1, which is identical to Emiliani's much later proposal.[2]
In 1963 E.R. Hope proposed the use of Anterior Epoch (AE), which also begins at the same point.[3]
Conversion
Conversion from Julian or Gregorian calendar years to the Human Era can be achieved by adding 10,000 to the AD/CE year. The present year, 2024, can be transformed into a Holocene year by adding the digit "1" before it, making it 12,024 HE. Years BC/BCE are converted by subtracting the BC/BCE year number from 10,001.
Gregorian year | ISO 8601 | Holocene year | Event |
---|---|---|---|
10002 BC | -10001 | -1 HE | |
10001 BC | -10000 | 0 HE | |
10000 BC | -9999[a] | 1 HE | Beginning of the Holocene Era |
9701 BC | -9700 | 300 HE | End of the Pleistocene and beginning of the Holocene epoch[6] |
4714 BC | -4713 | 5287 HE | Epoch of the Julian day system: Julian day 0 starts at Greenwich noon on January 1, 4713 BC of the proleptic Julian calendar, which is November 24, 4714 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar[7] : 10
|
3761 BC | -3760 | 6240 HE | Beginning of the Anno Mundi calendar era in the Hebrew calendar[7]: 11 |
3102 BC | -3101 | 6899 HE | Beginning of the Kali Yuga in Hindu cosmology[8] |
2250 BC | -2249 | 7751 HE | Beginning of the Meghalayan age, the current and latest of the three stages in the Holocene epoch.[9][10] |
45 BC | -0044 | 9956 HE | Introduction of the Julian calendar |
1 BC | 0000 | 10000 HE | Year zero at ISO 8601 |
1 AD | 0001 | 10001 HE | Beginning of the Common Era and Anno Domini, from the estimate by Dionysius of the Incarnation of Jesus |
622 | 0622 | 10622 HE | Migration of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina (Hijrah), starting the Islamic calendar[11][12] at 1 AH |
1582 | 1582 | 11582 HE | Introduction of the Gregorian calendar[7]: 47 |
1912 | 1912 | 11912 HE | Minguo calendars[14]
|
1950 | 1950 | 11950 HE | Epoch of the Before Present dating scheme[15] : 190
|
1960 | 1960 | 11960 HE | UTC Epoch
|
1970 | 1970 | 11970 HE | Unix Epoch[16] |
1993 | 1993 | 11993 HE | Publication of the Holocene calendar |
2024 | 2024 | 12024 HE | Current year |
10000 | +10000 | 20000 HE |
See also
- After the Development of Agriculture – calendar system that adds 8000 years to the Common Era.
- Anno Lucis – calendar system that adds 4000 years to the Common Era.
- Before Present, the notation most widely used today in scientific literature for dates in prehistory.
- Calendar reform
References
- ^ a b c
Emiliani, Cesare (1993). "Correspondence – calendar reform". Nature. 366 (6457): 716. doi:10.1038/366716b0.
- ^ a b
Naudin, Claude (2001). De temps en temps: Histoires de calendrier [From time to time: Calendar stories]. Le Grand Livre du Mois. ISBN 2-7028-4735-8.
- ^ a b
Hope, E.R. (1963). "The arithmetical reform of the calendar, Part I". Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. 57 (1): 14–23. Bibcode:1963JRASC..57...14H.
- ISBN 978-0-86012-006-3. Archivedfrom the original on July 27, 2020. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
- ^ a b Emiliani, Cesare (1994). "Calendar reform for the year 2000". Eos. 75 (19): 218. .
- ^ a b
Walker, Mike; Jonsen, Sigfus; Rasmussen, Sune Olander; Popp, Trevor; Steffensen, Jørgen-Peder; Gibbard, Phil; Hoek, Wim; Lowe, John; Andrews, John; doi:10.1002/jqs.1227. Archived(PDF) from the original on 2013-11-04.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-70238-6.
- ISBN 978-0-631-21535-6.
- ^ "ICS chart containing the Quaternary and Cambrian GSSPs and new stages (v 2018/07) is now released!". Archived from the original on February 19, 2020. Retrieved February 6, 2019.
- ^ Conners, Deanna (September 18, 2018). "Welcome to the Meghalayan age". Archived from the original on February 2, 2019. Retrieved February 6, 2019.
- Islamonline.net. Archivedfrom the original on 2006-12-14. Retrieved 2006-12-16.
- ^ Hakim Muhammad Said (1981). "The History of the Islamic Calendar in the Light of the Hijra". Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project. Archived from the original on 2011-06-10. Retrieved 2006-12-16.
- ISBN 978-0-275-96917-2.
- ISBN 978-0-674-00249-4.
- PMID 27366605. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-12-06. Retrieved 2018-06-24.
- ^ "The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Rationale, section 4.16 Seconds Since the Epoch". The OpenGroup. 2018. Archived from the original on 2017-11-15. Retrieved 2018-06-24.
Further reading
- David Ewing Duncan (1999). The Calendar. Fourth Estate. pp. 331–332. ISBN 978-1-85702-979-6.
- Duncan Steel (2000). Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 149–151. ISBN 978-0-471-29827-4.
- Günther A. Wagner (1998). Age Determination of Young Rocks and Artifacts: Physical and Chemical Clocks in Quaternary Geology and Archeology. Springer. p. 48. ISBN 978-3-540-63436-2.