The Holocene calendar, popular term for the Holocene Era count or Human Era count, uses a dating system similar to astronomical year numbering but adds 10,000, placing a zero at the start of the Human Era (HE, the beginning of human civilization) the approximation of the Holocene Epoch (HE, post Ice Age) for easier geological, archaeological, dendrochronological and historical dating. Astronomical year numbering is based on AD ( Anno Domini)/CE ( Common Era) year numbering but follows normal Decimal Integer numbering more strictly A Civilization is a society in which large numbers of people share a variety of common elements The Holocene is a Geological epoch which began approximately 10000 years ago (about 8000 BC An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the Temperature of the Earth 's surface and atmosphere resulting in an expansion of continental Ice sheets Geology (from Greek γη gê, "earth" and λόγος Logos, "speech" lit Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from Greek grc ἀρχαιολογία archaiologia – grc ἀρχαῖος archaīos Dendrochronology (from Greek grc δένδρον dendron, "tree" grc χρόνος khronos, "time" and grc -λογία History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology The current Gregorian year can be transformed by simply placing a 1 before it (ie: 12008). The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used Calendar in the world today The Human Era proposal was first made by Cesare Emiliani in 1993 (11993 HE). Cesare Emiliani ( 8 December 1922 - 20 July 1995) was an Italian-American scientist considered one of the greatest Geologists and Year 1993 ( MCMXCIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar) [1] [2]

Western motivation

Cesare Emiliani's proposal for a calendar reform sought to solve a number of problems with the current Gregorian Calendar, which currently serves as the commonly accepted world calendar. Cesare Emiliani ( 8 December 1922 - 20 July 1995) was an Italian-American scientist considered one of the greatest Geologists and A calendar reform is any significant revision of a Calendar system The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used Calendar in the world today The issues include:

• The Gregorian Calendar starts at the presumed year of the birth of Jesus Christ. The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used Calendar in the world today Jesus of Nazareth (7–2 BC / BCE —26–36 AD / CE) This Christian aspect of the Gregorian calendar (especially the use of Before Christ and Anno Domini) can be irritating, or even offensive, to non-Christian people. [3]
• 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 as 1 BC is followed immediately by AD 1. There is no year zero in the widely used Gregorian calendar, nor in its predecessor the Julian calendar.
• 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, of the current era to 10,000 BC. In the fields of Chronology and Periodization, an epoch means an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular 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 This is a first approximation of the start of the current geologic epoch, not coincidentally called the Holocene (the name means entirely recent). The geologic time scale is a chronologic schema (or idealized Model) relating Stratigraphy to time that is used by Geologists and other The Holocene is a Geological epoch which began approximately 10000 years ago (about 8000 BC The motivation for this is that human civilization (e. g. , the first settlements, agriculture, etc. ) is believed to have arisen around 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.

References

• David Ewing Duncan (1999). 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 (epagomenes Greek ἐπαγόμεναι The Pyramid of Djoser(Zoser, or step pyramid ( kbhw-ntrw in Egyptian) is an archeological remain in the Saqqara necropolis Egypt The Xia Dynasty ( of China is the first dynasty to be described in ancient historical records such as Records of the Grand Historian and Athens (ˈæθənz Αθήνα Athina,) the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery as one of the world's The Olympic Games is an international Multi-sport event established for both summer and winter games Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 Athenian democracy developed in the Greek City-state of Athens Cleisthenes (Κλεισθένης also Clisthenes or Kleisthenes) was a noble Athenian of the Alcmaeonid family The Battle of Marathon ( Greek: Μάχη τοῡ Μαραθῶνος Machē tou Marathōnos) during the Greco-Persian Wars took place in 490 The Battle of Salamis ( Ancient Greek:) was a decisive naval battle between the Greek City-states and Persia in September 480 BC in the In the Battle of Thermopylae, which occurred in August 480 BC (and was detailed almost entirely by Herodotus) an alliance of Greek City-states fought The trial of Socrates refers to the Trial and the subsequent execution of the Athenian Philosopher Socrates in 399 BC. The Decline of the Roman Empire, leading to the Fall of the Roman Empire, or the Fall of Rome, was the end of the Western Roman Empire. The arabic numerals (often capitalized are the ten Digits (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 which—along with the system World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including A millennium (pl millennia) is a period of Time equal to one thousand Years (from Latin la mille, thousand and la annum The Calendar, 331–332. ISBN 1-85702-979-8.  
• Cesare Emiliani (1993). Calendar reform. Nature, 366:716.  
• Duncan Steel (2000). Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar, pp. 149-151.  
• Günther A. Wagner (1998). Age Determination of Young Rocks and Artifacts: Physical and Chemical Clocks in Quaternary Geology and Archeology. Springer, p48.  
• Timeline of World History
• "News and comment", Geology Today, 20/3 (2004) 89–96.

See also

• Before Present
• Calendar Era
• Common Era
• Julian Period