Surveying Archaeologists Across the Globe Reveals Deeper and More Widespread Roots of the Human Age, the Anthropocene

Science

By Ben Marwick, Erle C. Ellis, Lucas Stephens, Nicole Boivin

Examples of how human societies are changing the planet abound — from building roads and houses, clearing forests for agriculture and digging train tunnels, to shrinking the ozone layer, driving species extinct, changing the climate and acidifying the oceans. Human impacts are everywhere. Our societies have changed Earth so much that it’s impossible to reverse many of these effects.


Ben Marwich is an associate professor of archaeology at the University of Washington.
Erie C. Ellis is a professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Lucas Stephens is a research affiliate in archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Nicole Boivin is the director of the department of archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Disclosure Statement

Ben Marwick receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the National Geographic Society.

Erle C. Ellis received funding from the National Science Foundation for this project under grant CNS 1125210. He is a fellow of the Global Land Program, a member of the Anthropocene Working Group of the International Commission on Stratigraphy, and a senior fellow of the Breakthrough Institute. He is a member of the American Association of Geographers.

Lucas Stephens receives funding from the American Council of Learned Societies. He is a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow and Senior Research Analyst at the Environmental Law and Policy Center and a Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Nicole Boivin receives funding from the Max Planck Society. She is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland, and a Research Affiliate at the Smithsonian Institution and University of Calgary.

Reposted with permission from our media associate The Conversation.

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