Archaeosphere
The archaeosphere is the totality of all archaeological strata and anthropogenic ground, considered on a global scale. It is comprised of cultivation soils, demolition rubble, dumped industrial waste, occupation debris, landfills, cut features such as mines and quarries, raised features such as embankments and levees, archaeological earthworks, urban strata, terraced hillsides, ‘reclaimed’ land, and other kinds of humanly-modified terrain. Although it started forming thousands of years ago, it is still being formed today, growing in volume and extent at ever increasing rates.
Archaeosphere strata are characterized by assemblages of artefacts and human-manufactured materials such as brick, ceramic, glass, concrete, and plastic, often together with biofacts such as human skeletal remains and the remains of domestic animals and plants. On a larger scale, the remains of whole cities can be preserved in the ground, often forming platforms on which which present-day cities are constructed.
Origins and use of the term
The term archaeosphere is relatively new. It was coined by P.J. Capelotti in 2009 to describe the remains of human activity on the surface of the moon, such as Apollo landing sites[1]. The following year Capelotti used the term to signify the remains of human activity on the surface of the Earth as viewed from space using satellite imagery and remote sensing[2]. In more recent work there is greater emphasis on depth of deposits as well as surface manifestations, with the archaeosphere understood as a three-dimensional stratigraphic unit covering large parts of the ice-free land masses of Earth. It is sometimes characterized as a new geological layer, with humans (along with their machines and domesticated animals and plants) as the primary geological agents responsible for its formation[3][4].
Relevance to the Anthropocene
As a physical trace of human activity, and a material residue of the technosphere[5], the archaeosphere has considerable relevance for discussion of the Anthropocene, especially in helping to provide the concept with a solid stratigraphic basis [6]. However, the one thing it cannot provide is a single and precise globally synchronous date for the start. The lower boundary of the archaeosphere is diachronous, changing in date from one part of its surface to another, and internal boundaries are diachronous too [7]. That makes it problematical in terms of the characterization of the Anthropocene as a geological epoch on the chronostratigraphic timescale [8], which requires a definite start date to be specified. However, it provides strong support for the alternative formulation of the Anthropocene as an unfolding, time-transgressive geological event [9][10][11]. The proposed Anthropocene Event, argued to have multiple beginnings spread out through time and irreducible to a single date, fits much better with the stratigraphic evidence of the archaeosphere[12].
Ecology of the archaeosphere
The archaeosphere is held to be intermeshed with the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere, and to have active environmental effects on all of these [13]. Recently formed archaeosphere deposits may contain large amounts of dumped waste, which can be toxic. The rapid growth of the archaeosphere smothers some habitats and creates others. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, for example, extensive river systems have been covered over and buried under urban strata [14].
However, not all the archaeosphere is hazardous or bad for the environment. The formation of extremely fertile soils known as terra preta or dark earth, as a by-product of pre-colonial horticultural practices in many parts of Central and South America, is an example of how human and natural forces can interact to produce soils which are beneficial to subsequent generations of people and to other species [15].
References
- ↑ Capelotti P.J. (2009) Surveying Fermi’s Paradox, Mapping Dyson’s Sphere: Approaches to Archaeological Field Research in Space. In: A.G. Darrin and B.L. O'Leary (eds) Handbook of Space Engineering, Archaeology, and Heritage. Boca Raton, CRC Press
- ↑ Capelotti, P.J. (2010) The Human Archaeology of Space: Lunar, Planetary and Interstellar Relics of Exploration. Jefferson, NC: Mcfarland & Co. ISBN 10: 0786458593
- ↑ Edgeworth, M. (2013) The relationship between archaeological stratigraphy and artificial ground and its significance in the Anthropocene’. In Waters, C.N., Zalasiewicz, J.A., Williams, M., Ellis, M. A. & Snelling, A. M. (eds), A Stratigraphical Basis for the Anthropocene. The Geological Society of London, Lyell Collection Special Publications 395.
- ↑ Edgeworth, M. (2018). Humanly modified ground. In: Dominick A. DellaSala, and Michael I. Goldstein (eds.) The Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene. Oxford: Elsevier, 157-161.
- ↑ Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Waters, CN.,Barnosky, AD. Palmesino, J., Rönnskog, A-S, Edgeworth, M., Neal, C., Cearreta, A., Ellis, EC., Grinevald, J., Haff, P., Ivar do Sul, JA., Jeandel, C., Leinfelder, R., McNeill, JR., Odada, E., Oreskes, N., Price, SJ., Revkin, A., Steffen, W., Summerhayes, C., Vidas, D., Wing, S., Wolfe, AP. (2017) Scale and diversity of the physical technosphere: A geological perspective. The Anthropocene Review 4:1, 9–22.
- ↑ Waters C, Zalasiewicz J, Williams M et al. (eds) (2014) A Stratigraphical Basis for the Anthropocene. Geological Society, London, Special Publications 395.
- ↑ Edgeworth, M., Richter, D. deB., Waters, C., Haff, P., Neal, C., and Price, S. (2015) Diachronous beginnings of the Anthropocene: The lower bounding surface of anthropogenic deposits. The Anthropocene Review 2:1, 33-58
- ↑ Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, Colin. N., Ivar de Sol, Juliana. et al. (2016). The geological cycle of plastics and their use as a stratigraphic indicator of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene 13
- ↑ Gibbard, PL., Bauer, AM., Edgeworth, M, Ruddiman, WF., Gill, JL., Merritts, DJ., Finney, SC., Edwards, LE., Walker, MJC., Maslin, M., Ellis, E. (2021) A practical solution: the Anthropocene is a geological event, not a formal epoch. Episodes – Journal of International Geoscience https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2021/021029
- ↑ Bauer, AM., Edgeworth, M., Edwards, LE. Ellis,E., Gibbard, P & Merritts, D.J. (2021) Anthropocene: event or epoch? Nature 597, 332 (14 September, 2021), correspondence. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02448-z
- ↑ Gibbard, P., Walker, M., Bauer, A., Edgeworth, M., Edwards, L., Ellis, E., Finney, S., Gill, J.L., Maslin, M., Merritts, D. and Ruddiman, W. (2022) The Anthropocene as an Event, not an Epoch. Journal of Quaternary Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.3416
- ↑ Edgeworth, M. (2021) Transgressing time: archaeological evidence in/of the Anthropocene. Annual Review of Anthropology 50:1 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-101819-110118
- ↑ Edgeworth, M. (2018) More than just a record: active ecological effects of archaeological strata. In Marcos Andre Torres de Souza and Diogo Menezes Costa (eds) Historical Archaeology and Environment. Cham: Springer, 19-40.
- ↑ Peloggia, A., Luz, R.A., Ortega, A. and Edgeworth, M. (2018). The expansion of the urban geological stratum (Archaeosphere) in the east of the State of São Paulo: the relationship between history, geography, geology and archaeology in the Anthropocene [in Portuguese]. Revista Brasileira de Geografia 62:2, 25-52
- ↑ Ute Scheub, Haiko Pieplow, Hans-Peter Schmidt, & Kathleen Draper (2016) Terra preta : how the world's most fertile soil can help reverse climate change and reduce world hunger. Greystone Books, Vancouver.
External links
- ‘City Ground’ by Stephen Graham, Places Journal, November 2016
- ‘Making Up Ground’ by Emmet Fitzgerald, 99% Invisible, Sept 2016
- ‘Beyond the surface of anthropocene landscapes’, lecture at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, by Matt Edgeworth, 2015
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