Holocene calendar

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Holocene calendar

The Holocene calendar, popular term for the Holocene Era count or Human Era count, uses a dating system similar to astronomical year numbering

Astronomical year numbering

Astronomical year numbering is based on AD /CE year numbering, but follows normal decimal integer numbering more strictly. Thus, it has a year zero, the years before that are designated with negative numbers and the years after that are designated with positive numbers....
but adds 10,000, placing a zero at the start of the Human Era (HE, the beginning of human civilization

Civilization

A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in towns and city....
) the approximation of the Holocene Epoch

Holocene

The Holocene is a geological Epoch which began approximately 11,700 years ago . According to traditional geological thinking, the Holocene continues to the present....
(HE, post Ice Age

Ice age

The general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers....
) for easier geological, archaeological, dendrochronological and historical dating. The current Gregorian

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was first proposed by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius, and decreed by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom it was named, on 24 February 1582 by the papal bull Inter gravissimas....
year can be transformed by simply placing a 1 before it (ie: ).

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The Holocene calendar, popular term for the Holocene Era count or Human Era count, uses a dating system similar to astronomical year numbering

Astronomical year numbering

Civilization

Holocene

The Holocene is a geological Epoch which began approximately 11,700 years ago . According to traditional geological thinking, the Holocene continues to the present....
(HE, post Ice Age

Ice age

Gregorian calendar

Cesare Emiliani

Cesare Emiliani was an Italian-American scientist, considered one of the greatest geologists and Micropaleontology of the 20th century and the founder of paleoceanography....
in 1993 (11993 HE).

Western motivation

Cesare Emiliani

Cesare Emiliani was an Italian-American scientist, considered one of the greatest geologists and Micropaleontology of the 20th century and the founder of paleoceanography....
's proposal for a calendar reform

Calendar reform

A calendar reform is any significant revision of a calendar system. The term sometimes is used instead for a proposal to switch to a different calendar....
sought to solve a number of problems with the current Gregorian Calendar

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was first proposed by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius, and decreed by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom it was named, on 24 February 1582 by the papal bull Inter gravissimas....
, which currently serves as the commonly accepted world calendar. The issues include:

The Gregorian Calendar
Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was first proposed by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius, and decreed by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom it was named, on 24 February 1582 by the papal bull Inter gravissimas....
starts at the presumed year of the birth of Jesus Christ. This Christian aspect of the Gregorian calendar (especially the use of Before Christ and Anno Domini
Anno Domini

, abbreviated as 'AD' or 'A.D.', and 'Before Christ', abbreviated as 'BC' or 'B.C.', are designations used to number years in the Julian calendar and Gregorian calendars....
) can offensive to non-Christian people.
Biblical scholarship is virtually unanimous that the birth of Jesus Christ would actually have been a few years prior to AD 1. This makes the calendar inaccurate insofar as Christian dates are concerned.
There is no year zero
Year zero

Year zero is not used in the widely used Gregorian calendar, nor in its predecessor, the Julian calendar. Under those systems, the year 1 BC is followed by AD 1....
as 1 BC is followed immediately by AD 1.
BC years are counted down when moving from past to future, thus 44 BC is after 250 BC. This makes calculating date ranges in the Holocene era across the BC/AD boundary more complicated than in the HE.

Instead, HE sets the start, the epoch

Epoch (reference date)

In the fields of chronology and periodization, an epoch means an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. The "epoch" then serves as a reference point from which time is measured....
, of the current era

Era

An era is a commonly used word for long period of time. When used in science, for example geology, eras denote clearly defined periods of time of arbitrary but well defined length, such as for example the Mesozoic era from 252 Ma?66 Ma, delimited by a start event and an end event....
to 10,000 BC. This is a first approximation of the start of the current geologic epoch, the Holocene

Holocene

The Holocene is a geological Epoch which began approximately 11,700 years ago . According to traditional geological thinking, the Holocene continues to the present....
(the name means entirely recent). The motivation for this is that human civilization (e.g., the first settlements, agriculture, etc.) is believed to have arisen entirely within this time. All key dates in human history can then be listed using a simple increasing date scale with smaller dates always occurring before larger dates.

Gregorian conversion

Conversion to Holocene from Gregorian AD dates can be achieved by adding 10,000. BC dates are converted by subtracting the BC year from 10,001.

A useful validity check is that the last digit of BC and HE equivalents must add up to 1 or 11.

Events	Gregorian years	Holocene Era Human Era
End of the Paleolithic Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic or "Old Stone" era is a Prehistory era distinguished by the development of the first stone tools, and covers roughly 99% of human history.... Period, All continents (apart from Antarctica Antarctica Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean.... ) inhabited, Agriculture Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution was the first agricultural revolution—the transition from hunter-gatherer communities and bands, to agriculture and settlement .... and the domestication of animals begins, Alteration in the Earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field is approximately a magnetic dipole, with one magnetic pole near the north pole and the other near the geographic south pole .... occurs, Possible extinction of last of humanity's hominan relatives Homo floresiensis *Homo floresiensis* is a possible species in the genus Homo , remarkable for its small body and brain and for its survival until relatively recent times....	c. 10000 BC	c. 0 HE
Earliest walled city PPNA Wall of Jericho The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A wall of Jericho dates to approximately 8000 BC and is thought to be the first city wall ever built. It surrounded and protected a Neolithic settlement which contained anywhere from 2000 to 3000 people.... (Jericho Jericho Jericho is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate, and has a population of over 20,000 Arabs.... )	c. 9000 BC	c. 1000 HE
First copper found in Middle East Middle East File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East.... - beginning of Copper Age Copper Age The Chalcolithic period or Copper Age period [also known as the Eneolithic ], is a phase in the development of human culture in which the use of early metal tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools....	c. 6000 BC	c. 4000 HE
Possible creation of the Egyptian calendar Egyptian calendar The ancient civil Egyptian calendar had a year that was 365 days long and was divided into 12 months of 30 days each, plus 5 extra days at the end of the year....	4242 BC	5759 HE
Beginning of Indus Valley Civilization Indus Valley Civilization The Indus Valley Civilization , abbreviated IVC, was an ancient civilization that flourished in the Indus River basin. Primarily centered along the Indus river, the civilization encompassed most of Pakistan, including its Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan provinces, and extending into modern day Indian states of Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab...	c. 3000 BC	c. 7000 HE
Probable date of the completion of the first Egyptian pyramid Pyramid of Djoser The Pyramid of Djoser , or step pyramid is an archeological remain in the Saqqara necropolis, Egypt, northwest of the city of Memphis, Egypt....	2611 BC	7390 HE
Beginning of Xia Dynasty Xia Dynasty The Xia Dynasty of China is the first dynasty to be described in ancient historical records such as Records of the Grand Historian and Bamboo Annals.... in China China China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....	c. 2100 BC	c. 7900 HE
Foundation of Rome Rome Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....	753 BC	9248 HE
First Central American writing systems	c. 400 BC	c. 9600 HE
Empire of Asoka	273 BC	9728 HE
Imperial China, Qin dynasty Qin Dynasty The Qin Dynasty was preceded by the feudal Zhou Dynasty and followed by the Han Dynasty in China. The unification of China in 221 BCE under the Qin Shi Huang marked the beginning of Imperial China, a period which lasted until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 CE....	221 BC	9780 HE
Last year of BC era	1 BC	10000 HE
First year of Anno Domini Anno Domini , abbreviated as 'AD' or 'A.D.', and 'Before Christ', abbreviated as 'BC' or 'B.C.', are designations used to number years in the Julian calendar and Gregorian calendars.... era	AD 1	10001 HE
Migration Period Migration Period The Migration Period, also called Barbarian Invasions or V?lkerwanderung , was a period of human migration which occurred within the period of roughly 300?700 Common Era in Europe, marking the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.... begins, leading to the Fall of Rome	AD 300/476	10300/10476 HE
Turkic migration Turkic migration The Turkic migration as defined in this article was the expansion of the Turkic peoples across most of Central Asia into Europe and the Middle East between the 6th and 11th centuries AD .... s begin	c. AD 500	c. 10500 HE
Muslim conquests Muslim conquests Arab Muslim conquests , also referred to as the Islamic conquests or Arab conquests, began after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.... begin	AD 632	10632 HE
Great Zimbabwe Great Zimbabwe The Great Zimbabwe, or "stone buildings", is the name given to stone ruins spread out over a 722 ha area within the modern-day country of Zimbabwe, which itself is named after the ruins.... built	c. AD 1000	c. 11000 HE
Hindu-Arabic numerals introduced to Europe Europe Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....	AD 1202	11202 HE
Black Death Black Death The Black Death, was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, widely thought to have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis , but recently attributed by some factors to other diseases.... decimates Asia and Europe	AD 1340s	11340s HE
European expansion and colonization Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration, was a period in human history starting in the 15th Century and continuing into the 17th Century, during which Europeans explored the world by ocean searching for trading partners and particular trade goods.... begins	AD 1419	11419 HE
Fall of the Inca Empire Inca Empire The Inca Empire was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cuzco in modern-day Peru....	AD 1572	11572 HE
Second Industrial Revolution Second Industrial Revolution The Second Industrial Revolution, typically dated between 1870 and 1914, was a second phase of the Industrial Revolution, involving several developments within the chemical industry, electrical industry, petroleum industry, and steel industry....	c. AD 1850	c. 11850 HE
Second World War and nuclear fission Nuclear technology Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reaction of atomic nucleus. It has found applications from smoke detectors to nuclear reactors, and from gun sights to nuclear weapons....	AD 1939-1945	11939-11945 HE
First human in space Human spaceflight A human spaceflight is a spaceflight with a Astronaut, and possibly passengers. This makes it unlike Robotic spacecraft space probes or remotely-controlled satellites....	AD 1961	11961 HE
Current year	AD	HE
Last year of the current millennium Millennium A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years . The term may implicitly refer to calendar millenniums; periods tied numerically to a particular calendar, specifically ones that begin at the starting point of the calendar in question or in later years which are whole number multiples of a thousand years after it....	AD 3000	13000 HE

Holocene calendar

Western motivation

Gregorian conversion

See also