The Human Era: Rethinking Our History

Human history goes back a long way.

I love the idea of the Holocene Calendar and how it brings into perspective the true scope of human history and progress. It makes ancient humans seem more real and more connected to the present and is a great tool for reframing the way we think about history.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First off, what even IS the Holocene Calendar?

From Wikipedia
The Holocene calendar, also known as the Holocene Era or Human Era (HE), is a year numbering system that adds exactly 10,000 years to the currently dominant (AD/BC or CE/BCE) 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.

This awesome video from Kurzgesagt is a fantastic introduction to the concept.

Holocene Calendar 2.0 Project

Karen, a researcher and history buff from decamillenium.org (a site dedicated to translating historical articles into HE-compliant documents) has created a fantastic website outlining the value of the calendar, and ways you can implement it in your works.

From holocenecalendar.org
We have a real problem with the Christian year numbering system. Forget about the fact that the origin of this system was calculated mistakenly, or the fact that the event from which we count years (birth of Jesus Christ) may not have significance for non-Christians. The main issue with the dating system that we use today is that for the largest part of written human history we count years backwards.

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Connecting to our ancient roots.

Reconsidering our history as a single continuous timeline removes a layer of distance and ephemerality that divides us from the people, cultures, and societies that came before us and paved the way for our modern world.

What do you think of the Holocene Calendar?
How does it feel to be living in the 121st century?