ANTHROPOCENE

How humans have affected earth throughout the years

Sofia Papakosta

Vivenia Reppa

G5 2nd Experimental Junior

High School of Athens

Teacher: Dimitra Dertili

ANTHROPOCENE

• The anthropocene describes how humankind has

shaped the earth and has changed the environment in

order to satisfy its needs

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Anthropocene

THE AGRARIAN ERA

4000BC-1ST MILLENIUM BC

4000 BC: COPPER AGE

• The Copper Age is the beginning of the Bronze Age.

• During this age, several inventions were made mainly in eastern

Europe, Asia and Mesopotamia. Some of them are:

Pottery Technology

Rope

Daggers, arrowheads and swords

Cultivation of plants and seeds

Some of the first writing systems

http://wiki.sjs.org/wiki/index.php/List_and_ex

plain_any_inventions_from_the_Early_Bronz

e_Age_to_the_Iron_Age

3000-1500BC: BRONZE AGE

• In this period some great inventions were made and people

started adapting to new lifestyles. For example:

Sumerians started living together, creating the very first cities and

civilization

Middle Eastern and European civilians began to cultivate and farm

more than they did before

People in southern Asia and northern Europe started to use

wheeled items

Tin was discovered and metals were used for tools and weapons

https://www.thoughtco.com/wheeled-vehicles-history-practical-human-use-171870

http://www.timemaps.com/history/europe-3500bc/#timemap-3500bc/

http://www.timemaps.com/history/middle-east-3500bc/

1500 BC: BRONZE AGE

• One of the greatest inventions of humankind, the alphabet, was made in

1500 BC in Asia

• Other inventions that were made back then:

Pottery wheel

Writing, China

Use of iron, Hittites

Wheels with spokes as to fight the enemies from their chariot, Asia

Squash, corn, beans, potatoes and sweet potatoes, south and central America

http://quatr.us/timelines/2000bc.htm

http://www.timemaps.com/history/europe-1500bc/

1ST MILLENNIUM BC: IRON AGE

• During this period, many empires rose, people began to use coins more

often and, of course, a lot of inventions were made:

Catapult, lenses and the Pythagorean Theory, Ancient Greece

Also, the greek alphabet was invented, the first alphabet with vowels

Lighthouse, Egypt

Glass, Lebanon

Fake teeth, Etruria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_millennium_BC

THE MODERN ERA

1ST MILLENIUM AD- MID TO LATE 21ST CENTURY

1ST MILLENNIUM AD

• This period was characterized for the religious and christian character,

the Middle Ages and the Great Migration in the Mediterranean and in

Europe as well. Christianity was considered to be more accurate than

science and this was a cause for many wars.

• In the east, the Byzantine Empire rose and Islamism spread its

influence, having its Golden Age, while in the west the Vikings expanded

their conquest and upgraded their ships.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_millennium

THE RAILWAY REVOLUTION: 19TH

CENTURY

• The first train that ran directly from York to London

was in 1840

• 10 years after, there were 12 more trains a day

travelling between these two cities, a great

achievement for that time.

• Despite some arguments that took place in 1830,

industries soon realized that railways were very

profitable and for almost 10 years they boosted the

creation and the use of railways. As a result, there

were 10,000 acts creating railways later this period

http://www.historyextra.com/article/feature/8-facts-about-history-railways

https://www.thoughtco.com/railways-in-the-industrial-revolution-1221650

STEAMSHIPS: EARLY 19TH CENTURY

• The first ship powered by steam was the

Pyroscaphe, built by Marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans in

1783.

• The first successful steamship though was the

Charlotte Dundas in 1802.

• By 1818 steam powered ships and the quadruple-

expansion engine were developed.

• In 1854 John Elder invented the compound steam

engine and a few years later Brunel's Great Eastern,

the largest ship at that time, was launched.

http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/IR/033.html

HISTORY OF THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE: LATE 19TH

CENTURY

• 1509: Leonardo da Vinci described a compression-less engine. 1673: Christiaan Huygens described a compression-less engine.

• 1780's: Alessandro Volta built a toy electric pistol in which an electric spark exploded a mixture of air and hydrogen, firing a cork from the end of the gun.

• 17th century: English inventor Sir Samuel Morland used gunpowder to drive water pumps.

• 1794: Robert Street built a compression-less engine whose principle of operation would dominate for nearly a century.

• 1806: Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built an internal combustion engine powered by a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Internal_combustion_engine

http://www.crankshift.com/history-internal-combustion-engine

• 1882: James Atkinson invented the Atkinson cycle

engine. Atkinson’s engine had one power phase per

revolution together with different intake and expansion

volumes making it more efficient than the Otto cycle.

• 1891: Herbert Akroyd Stuart builds his oil engine

leasing rights to Hornsby of England to build engines.

• 1900: Rudolf Diesel demonstrated the diesel engine in

the

1900 Exposition Universelle using peanut oil

(biodiesel).

AIRLINE INDUSTRY: EARLY 20TH

CENTURY

• On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers executed the first flight in history.

• In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Act established the Civil Aeronautics Board. This

board had numerous functions, two of which were determining airlines' routes of

travel and regulating prices for passenger fares.

• In the history of air travel, civil air jets were developed in the 1950’s. The first was

the Boeing 707 passenger jet.

• In 1978 airlines were able to set their own routes and prices

• A 1981 air traffic controllers strike brought a temporary setback to the growth,

which continued throughout the 1980s.

• In 2001 another economic downturn occured, as business travel decreased

substantially while labor and fuel costs increased. 9/11 greatly magnified the

airlines' issues, leading to a sharp decline in customers and significantly higher

operating costs.

SPACE EXPLORATION: MID 20TH

CENTURY 1/2

• In the 1930s and 1940s the Nazis found very useful the long-distance rockets as weapons.

• In the late 1950s the Russians first launched an artificial satellite, Sputnik I. It was launched on 4 October

1957.

• On 3 November 1957 the Russians sent a dog, Laika, into space in a satellite. She was the first living

creature in space.

• During the 1960s unmanned spacecraft photographed and probed the moon before astronauts ever

landed.

• By the end of 1970, the Voyager spacecraft had sent back detailed images of Jupiter and Saturn, their

rings, and their moons.

• In the 1980s satellite communications expanded to carry television programs, and people were able to

pick up the satellite signals on their home dish antennas.

• Spacecraft called Near Shoemaker was launched in 1996. It became the first craft to land on an asteroid

(Eros) in 2001.

http://www.aerospace.org/education/stem-outreach/space-

primer/a-brief-history-of-space-exploration/

http://www.localhistories.org/space.html

2/2

• In 2004 the European Space Agency launched a spacecraft

called Rosetta, which was set to reach a comet in 2014.

• The New Horizons probe was launched by NASA in 2006 and

it was scheduled to reach Pluto and Charon in 2015. Also in

2006 Venus Express managed to reach Venus.

• In 2011 Messenger became the first probe to orbit Mercury.

Also, in 2011 a spacecraft called Dawn became the first to

orbit an asteroid.

• The first woman in space was Liu Yang, in 2012

http://www.aerospace.org/education/stem-outreach/space-primer/a-brief-

history-of-space-exploration/

http://www.localhistories.org/space.html

THE DIGITAL ERA

FROM LATE 20TH CENTURY TO MID 21ST CENTURY

THE RISE OF PRACTICAL SCIENCES

• Biology- Nanotechnology: 1956: in MIT the term ‘’molecular engineering” was introduced

• 1974: Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi coined the term nanotechnology to

describe precision machining of materials within atomic-scale dimensional tolerances.

• 1990s: Nanotechnological companies are set up.

• 1999–early 2000’s: Consumer products due to nanotechnology began appearing in the

marketplace. (digital cameras etc)

• 2004: the first college-level education program in nanotechnology was established in the USA

( College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.)

COMPUTER SCIENCE

• 1944: The very first computer was introduced at the university of Harvard in the USA.

• 1947: Instead of punch cards people were now able to use type information effectively thanks to the invention of the keyboard.

• 1950: The first digital computer is invented in Japan. This will allow more data to be released and read easily.

• 1963: The mouse was introduced.

• 1975:Altair invents the first portable computer.

• August 6,1991: The World Wide Web was introduced and everyone could have access to information with just a simple click.

COSMOLOGY-BIG BANG

The most widespread and acceptable theory of the creation of the

universe among the scientific circles was developed by Stephen

Hawking.

According to this theory the Universe was created from an excessively

dense and warm state about 13.8 billion years ago.

Hawking put so much effort into trying to understand black holes and the

possibility of an existing parallel universe.

SOURCES

• http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/664230/stephen-hawking-black-

hole-nobel-prize-hawking-radiation

• https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9C%CE%B5%CE%B3%CE%AC%C

E%BB%CE%B7_%CE%88%CE%BA%CF%81%CE%B7%CE%BE%CE

%B7

• https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/10-important-events-in-computer-

history

• https://www.nano.gov/timeline

FUTURE ERA

WHAT ABOUT TOMMOROW?

• No one really knows how lives are going to be shaped in the future, but

there are high chances of us living in a society not so different from the

ones depicted in recent fantasy movies and Sci-Fi novels.

• Automatic cars, implanted computer chips into ours eyes or our brains,

helmet structures that transport signals and help with the education of

people, hardwired internet connection in every aspect of our routines

are only some of our predictions of how our lives will be tomorrow.

HOWEVER

• There is a truth universally acknowledged that if we do not stop waste

and take advantage of earth natural resources, do not tackle problems

such as pollution, the greenhouse effect and the extinction of

endangered species and do not sensitize ourselves about the

devastating poor living conditions of the developing countries the future

will not be bright at all.

• Its high time we take action and do something to protect the generations

to come and the earth from our own terrible effects on our planet and

our lives.