Holocene calendar

The Holocene calendar, or Human era  (HE), is a year numbering system that adds 10,000 years to the present Anno Domini (AD) or Common Era (CE) system. It puts the first year near the beginning of the Holocene epoch and the Neolithic revolution. Those who favour the HE system say that it makes for easier geological, archeological, dendrochronological and historical dating. 

For example, the year 2022 can be made into a Holocene year by adding the number "1" before it, making it 12022 . The calendar was introduced by the scientist Cesare Emiliani in 1993 (11993 ).Cesare Emiliani, "Calendar Reform", Nature 366 (1993) 716.The Holocene Calendar at Meerkat Meade.

Arguments supporting the Holocene calendar include:
In the Anno Domini system the birth of Jesus represents the year 1. People now think Jesus was born four years earlier.
The years  are counted down when moving from past to future, making it more difficult to calculate timespans across this divide.
The Anno Domini system has no year zero, with 1  followed by year 1. It is important to not forget this when calculating lengths of time.

The HE starts at 10001 . This is a rough approximation of the start of the current geologic epoch, the Holocene or Recent period.  Human settlements, first cities and agriculture  probably started in this period. All important dates in human history can then be listed using a simple increasing date scale with smaller dates always before larger dates.

Conversion
Conversion to the Human Era from Julian or Gregorian AD years can be achieved by adding 10,000. BC years are converted by subtracting the BC year from 10,001.

A useful check is that the last single number of BC and HE equivalent pairs must add up to 1 or 11.

 Gregorian years ISO 8601 Human Era Holocene  Epoch Remarks 30001  −30000 20000  10001  −10000 0  10000  −9999 1  Beginning of Holocene. 9001  −9000 1000  1000  −0999 9001  753  −0999 9248  Foundation of Rome. 100  −0099 9901  Birth of Julius Caesar. 10  −0009 9991  4  −0003 9997  Birth of Jesus. 2  −0001 9999  1  +0000 10000  1 +0001 10001  2 +0002 10002  10 +0010 10010  33 +0033 10033  Crucifixion of Jesus. 100 +0100 10100  632 +0632 10632  Death of Muhammad. 1000 +1000 11000  1582 +1582 11582  Adoption of Gregorian calendar. 2000 +2000 12000  Current year 10000 +10000 20000  Y10K problem.

 Related pages 
 Common Era
 Julian date (JD) – the interval of time in days and fractions of a day since January 1, 4713 BCE, Greenwich noon.

 References 




 "News and comment", Geology Today, 20/3 (2004) 89–96.


Category:Calendars
Category:Cainozoic