Holocene calendar


The Holocene calendar, also known as the Holocene Era or Human Era, is a year numbering system that adds exactly 10,000 years to the currently dominant numbering scheme, placing its first year near the beginning of the Holocene geological epoch and the Neolithic Revolution, when humans transitioned from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture and fixed settlements. The current year by the Gregorian calendar, AD, is 1 HE in the Holocene calendar. The HE scheme was first proposed by Cesare Emiliani in 1993.

Overview

Cesare Emiliani's proposal for a calendar reform sought to solve a number of alleged problems with the current Anno Domini era, which number the years of the commonly accepted world calendar. These issues include:
Instead, HE uses the "beginning of human era" as its epoch, arbitrarily defined as 10,000 BC denoted year 1 HE, so that AD 1 matches 10,001 HE. This is a rough approximation of the start of the current geologic epoch, the Holocene. The motivation for this is that human civilization is believed to have arisen within this time. Emiliani would later propose that the start of the Holocene be fixed at the same date as the beginning of his proposed era.

Benefits

Human Era proponents claim that it makes for easier geological, archaeological, dendrochronological, anthropological and historical dating, as well as that it bases its epoch on an event more universally relevant than the birth of Jesus. All key dates in human history can then be listed using a simple increasing date scale with smaller dates always occurring before larger dates. Another gain is that the Holocene Era starts before the other calendar eras, so it could be useful for the comparison and conversion of dates from different calendars.

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. 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, about 300 years more recent than the epoch of the Holocene calendar.

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,, can be transformed into a Holocene year by adding the digit "1" before it, making it HE. Years BC/BCE are converted by subtracting the BC/BCE year number from 10,001.
Event
10001 BC−100000 HEBeginning of the Holocene Era
9701 BC−9700300 HEEnd of the Pleistocene and beginning of the Holocene epoch
4714 BC−47135287 HEEpoch 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
3761 BC−37606240 HEBeginning of the Anno Mundi calendar era in the Hebrew calendar
3102 BC−31016899 HEBeginning of the Kali Yuga in Hindu cosmology
2250 BC−22497751 HEBeginning of the Meghalayan age, the current and latest of the three stages in the Holocene era.
45 BC−00449956 HEIntroduction of the Julian calendar
1 BC+000010000 HEYear zero at ISO 8601
AD 1+000110001 HEBeginning of the Common Era and Anno Domini, from the estimate by Dionysius of the Incarnation of Jesus
622, 1 AH+062210622 HEMigration of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, starting the Islamic calendar
1582+158211582 HEIntroduction of the Gregorian calendar
1912+191211912 HEEpoch of the Juche and Minguo calendars
1950+195011950 HEEpoch of the Before Present dating scheme
1970+197011970 HEUnix Epoch
1993+199311993 HEPublication of the Holocene calendar
+ HECurrent year
10000+1000020000 HE

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