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Pivotal 20th Century Contributions to the Development of the Anthropocene Concept:Overview and Implications

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Humans have become such dominant drivers of planetary changes that scientists are now debating the establishment of a new epoch: the Anthropocene. The concept of the Anthropocene has gained rapid visibility, quickly becoming a trademark of 21st century scientific literature. Interestingly, some studies claim that this idea can be traced back to the 19th and 20th centuries, others suggest that this concept is strongly associated with emerging multidisciplinary views of humans as drivers of global environmental change. In this article, we analyse bibliographical data to trace the key 20th century contributions towards the development of this concept in scientific literature. Using data from Web of Science, we identify five historical citation peaks and show that their associated key publications stem both from natural and social sciences, clearly highlighting the multidisciplinary nature of Anthropocene science. With the ongoing debate for a formal definition of the Anthropocene epoch, we argue that a geological definition aligned with the interdisciplinary development of the concept may be the best way to ensure that it remains relevant to the wider scientific community.
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GENERAL ARTICLES
CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 115, NO. 10, 25 NOVEMBER 2018 1871
Ricardo A. Correia, Ana C. M. Malhado and Richard J. Ladle are in the
Institute of Biological and Health Sciences, Federal University o
f
Alagoas, Praça Afrânio Jorge, s/n, Prado, Maceió, AL, Brazil; Ricardo
A. Correia and Richard J. Ladle are also in the School of Geography an
d
the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United King-
dom; Zeynep C. H. Correia is in the Department of Urban and Envi-
ronmental Sciences, Ankara University, Cemal Gürsel Cad., Cebeci,
Ankara, Turkey and Department of Political Science and Public Admini-
stration, Kırıkkale University, Yenişehir Mh. 71450, Kırıkkale, Turkey.
*For correspondence. (e-mail: rahc85@gmail.com)
Pivotal 20th century contributions to the
development of the Anthropocene concept:
overview and implications
Ricardo A. Correia*, Zeynep C. H. Correia, Ana C. M. Malhado and Richard J. Ladle
Humans have become such dominant drivers of planetary changes that scientists are now debating
the establishment of a new epoch: the Anthropocene. The concept of the Anthropocene has gained
rapid visibility, quickly becoming a trademark of 21st century scientific literature. Interestingly,
some studies claim that this idea can be traced back to the 19th and 20th centuries, others suggest
that this concept is strongly associated with emerging multidisciplinary views of humans as drivers
of global environmental change. In this article, we analyse bibliographical data to trace the key
20th century contributions towards the development of this concept in scientific literature. Using
data from Web of Science, we identify five historical citation peaks and show that their associated
key publications stem both from natural and social sciences, clearly highlighting the multidiscipli-
nary nature of Anthropocene science. With the ongoing debate for a formal definition of the
Anthropocene epoch, we argue that a geological definition aligned with the interdisciplinary deve-
lopment of the concept may be the best way to ensure that it remains relevant to the wider scientific
community.
Keywords: Bibliometrics, citations, multidisciplinary science, reference publication year spectroscopy, scientometrics.
HUMAN actions have deeply transformed the Earth’s sur-
face1–5 and pushed the crucial Earth System processes
beyond their safe operating space6,7. The realization that
human actions have produced a fundamental shift in our
relationship with the environment has led to the origin of
a new concept: the Anthropocene.
First proposed by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer
in a publication aptly entitled ‘The Anthropocene’8, the
concept gained rapid acceptance by the scientific com-
munity2,9. Not only the number of scientific articles using
the term ‘Anthropocene’ has exponentially increased
since it was first proposed10,11, several newly established
academic journals have also been dedicated to its study.
Examples include Anthropocene12, Earth’s Future13,
Elementa14 and The Anthropocene Review15. These facts
suggest that the Anthropocene is quickly becoming a key
concept of 21st century science.
Despite its recent popularity, many studies suggest that
Anthropocene has several ‘precursors’ and deep roots in
19th and 20th century science2,16,17. Others, however, ques-
tion this interpretation and argue that the present concept
emerges from the more recent interdisciplinary understand-
ing of the Earth System18. This discussion about the origin
and meanings of the concept may be particularly relevant at
a time when the debate for a formal geological definition of
the Anthropocene epoch is ongoing19,20.
In this paper, we aim to add to this debate by exploring
20th century publications that contributed to the devel-
opment of the Anthropocene concept in scientific litera-
ture using reference publication year spectroscopy
(RPYS). This quantitative method can be used to identify
seminal contributions towards the development of
research topics21, and has already provided some fascinat-
ing insights on the emergence of specific concepts in
scientific literature22–25. By analysing the temporal fre-
quency distribution of references cited by a set of publi-
cations, RPYS allows the identification of years where
particularly important studies were published.
Methods
We carried out a search on Thomson Reuters’ Web of
Science (WoS) to obtain a representative sample of scien-
tific publications addressing the ‘Anthropocene’. A topic
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CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 115, NO. 10, 25 NOVEMBER 2018
1872
search of Web of Science’s core collection was carried
out on 14 February 2017 using the term ‘Anthropocene’
as search string. Results were filtered to include only
research articles (i.e. excluding reviews, conference
proceedings, etc.) published until December 2016. The
complete record of identified references, including refer-
ences cited by each publication, was extracted and used
for analysis.
Data were analysed using RPYS method introduced by
Marx et al.21. This method is based on the temporal fre-
quency analysis of references cited in a set of publica-
tions and can be used to explore the historical roots of a
research field and identify seminal contributions that
shaped its development23–25.
The purpose of this analysis was to identify original
studies that contributed to the development of the field,
which only recently gained widespread visibility, so we
restricted our analysis to publications from the 20th
century (1901–2000). The software used to extract cited
references is described by Bornmann et al.22 and freely
available at http://www.leydesdorff.net/software/rpys/.
After extraction, we plotted the distribution of cited ref-
erences between 1901 and 2000, and selected relevant
peaks in cited reference years by identifying the top 5%
(95% quantile) most cited years. All figures and numeri-
cal analyses were carried out using R software26.
Results
We identified a total of 867 scientific publications
indexed by WoS using the term ‘Anthropocene’. The first
indexed publication matching these criteria dates back to
2002 and, since then, there has been an exponential
increase in the number of publications using the term
(Figure 1). Analysis of cited references yielded over
10,000 unique citations published between 1901 and
2000, and there were five distinct peaks corresponding to
the years 1973, 1983, 1987, 1995 and 2000 (Figure 2).
We recorded a total of 126 citations to manuscripts
published in 1973. Of these, 19 citations referred to a
single article by Crawford S. Holling, a Canadian ecolo-
gist and Emeritus Eminent Scholar and Professor in Eco-
logical Sciences at the University of Florida. The
article in question, entitled ‘Resilience and stability of
ecological systems’, was published in the journal Annual
Review of Ecology and Systematic. This paper discusses
the differences between resilience and stability focused
viewpoints of ecological systems and argues that a man-
agement approach of ecosystems based on resilience can
better accommodate the uncertain nature of ecological
systems27.
Publications from 1983 received 224 citations and,
interestingly, no single publication stood out in terms of
citations. The remarkably homogenous distribution of
citations among publications suggests that this year’s
citation peak does not stem from a single publication, but
rather a larger set of potentially relevant ones. Still, it is
worth highlighting that the most cited publication from
1983, with eight citations, is the book Anti-Oedipus:
Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze, a philo-
sopher and Felix Guattari, a psychoanalyst28. This is a
complex text, where the authors critically address modern
micropolitics of desire through the lenses of human psy-
chology, economics, society and history29. An interesting
fact is that all citations to the book in our database refer
to the English language translation, published in 1983 by
the University of Minnesota Press, and not the original
French version published in 1972.
The next peak was in 1987, with a total of 350
citations. The key publication this year was a report by
the United Nations World Commission on Environment
and Development entitled ‘Our Common Future’30. Also
known as the Brundtland Report, this publication was
cited 31 times. The report aimed to stimulate an inte-
grated discussion of environmental and development
issues, focusing on multilateralism and the interdepen-
dence of nations in search of a sustainable development
path. It is credited with, and often remembered for, intro-
ducing the most commonly used definition of ‘sustainable
development31.
A total of 784 citations were registered for manuscripts
published in 1995. Much like the second peak in 1983,
the number of citations per publication is remarkably
even, which suggests it might arise from a higher than
average number of potentially relevant references. The
largest share of this year’s citations, 18 in total, referred
to the book by William Cronon entitled Uncommon
Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature. The author is an
environmental historian at the University of Wisconsin–
Madison. In this text, Cronon traces the concept of
wilderness throughout American history, claims that the
notion of an untouched, pristine wilderness is unreal and
Figure 1. Temporal distribution of the number of scientific articles
returned by Web of Science core collection based on the search term
‘Anthropocene’.
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CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 115, NO. 10, 25 NOVEMBER 2018 1873
Figure 2. Distribution of cited references between 1901 and 2000 is shown in dark gray columns. The
black dotted-line shows the absolute deviation of cited references for a given year from the 5-year
median. The dashed line delimits the top 5% most cited years accentuating years with a higher than
expected number of citations.
argues that humans should strive for a more critical self-
conscious use of nature32.
The final peak was observed in 2000, with a total of
1077 citations, making it the highest number of citations
observed in a single year. Inevitably, this peak was driven
by a single publication receiving 179 citations and
entitled ‘The Anthropocene’8. Co-authored by Paul
Crutzen, a Nobel prize winner for his work in atmo-
spheric chemistry, and Eugene Stoermer, leading biolo-
gist at the University of Michigan, this publication is
often credited with introducing and popularizing the term
‘Anthropocene’2,15. Our results reinforce this idea: this
publication has been cited more than four times the num-
ber of the second most cited reference (Table 1) and
might become a ‘champion work’33–35 in due time.
Finally, it is interesting to note that apart from Deleuze
and Guatarri’s book, the remaining key publications are
among the 10 most cited references in our database
(Table 1), which includes over 10,000 individually refer-
enced publications. Other highly cited publications
include Latour’s36 book We Have Never Been Modern,
Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems by Vitousek et
al.37, a second book by Deleuze and Guattari38 entitled A
Thousand Plateaus, The Limits to Growth by Meadows et
al.39, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of
Nature by Haraway40 and a Hooke’s41 article ‘On the his-
tory of humans as geomorphic agents’.
Discussion
The present analysis provides a clear picture of the multi-
disciplinary nature of Anthropocene study. Our sample of
scientific literature certainly does not cover every single
publication addressing the Anthropocene. However, we
believe it provides a robust sample of the existing litera-
ture and highlights how the concept has been adopted
by – and draws inspiration from – both natural and social
sciences10,11.
Identified key publications stem from a wide range of
scientific disciplines such as geology, ecology, philosophy,
history of sociology, sustainability and environmental
science. Furthermore, important contributions from
anthropology, economy, psychology and gender studies
can also be found among the top cited references (Table
1). These findings support the idea that the representation
of the Anthropocene in current scientific literature has
been shaped by an increasingly interdisciplinary under-
standing of Earth Systems10,18. Inter- and multidiscipli-
nary efforts are a hallmark of 21st century science42 and
the recent establishment of the Anthropocene concept in
the scientific literature also bears this mark.
Why is this important? Going forward, any future re-
presentation of the concept within the scientific literature
will inevitably be tied to its formal definition as a geolo-
gical epoch43, if such a decision is reached. As shown
here, the role of social sciences in the evolution of the
Anthropocene concept and study is indisputable9,44,45, but
ongoing discussions to conceptualize the geological
description of the Anthropocene epoch have been aptly
criticized for not including social scientists19.
Reification of the Anthropocene will have enormous
symbolic significance, with the potential of providing a
convenient and powerful concept that will endure and
unite diverse fields interested in the study of environmen-
tal and planetary change46. Any formal definition of the
Anthropocene epoch must fall under the scope of geolo-
gical sciences and their authorities47, but failing to align it
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Table 1. Summary table of 10 most cited references in Anthropocene literature
Authors Year Title Citations
P. Crutzen and E. Stoermer 2000 The Anthropocene 179
B. Latour 1993 We have never been modern 42
P. M. Vitousek et al. 1997 Human domination of Earth’s ecosystems 32
World Commission on Environment and Development 1987 Our common future 31
G. Deleuze and F. Guattari 1987 A thousand plateaus 25
D. Meadows et al. 1972 The limits to growth 25
D. Haraway 1991 Simians, cyborgs and women: the reinvention of nature 21
R. L. Hooke 2000 On the history of humans as geomorphic agents 20
C. S. Holling 1973 Resilience and stability of ecological systems 19
W. Cronon 1995 Uncommon ground: toward reinventing nature 18
to the broader meaning of the concept can limit some of
its potential rhetorical and symbolic power, and even
result in a division of the concept into multiple ‘Anthro-
pocenes’20.
Hence, we concur that a future definition of the Anth-
ropocene should consider criteria that encompass (as best
as possible) the multiple dimensions of the concept as it
came to be shaped and perceived by the wider scientific
community48. Ongoing discussions represent a unique
opportunity to re-conceptualize the Anthropocene11 in a
manner that can ensure, and even reinforce, its status as a
multidisciplinary concept that is relevant for a large num-
ber of natural and social sciences dedicated to the study
of global environmental change. Perhaps more importantly,
it will guarantee the significance of Anthropocene mes-
sage in the wider societal debate about the interaction
between humans and the environment49,50.
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Soc. B Biol. Sci., 2011, 369, 842–867.
3. Kareiva, P., Watts, S., McDonald, R. and Boucher, T., Domesti-
cated nature: shaping landscapes and ecosystems for human wel-
fare. Science, 2007, 316, 1866–1869.
4. Ellis, E. C., Goldewijk, K. K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D. and
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W., The Limits to Growth, Universe Books, New York, 1972.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. R.A.C. was initially supported by a post-
doctoral grant from CNPq (#158841/2015-8) and is currently supported
by FCT Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (SFRH/BPD/
118635/2016). RJL and ACMM are funded by CNPq – Conselho Na-
cional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (#310953/2014-6;
#310349/2015-0). We thank Anna Pavlova and an anonymous reviewer
for their useful comments on the manuscript.
Received 10 May 2017; revised accepted 7 July 2018
doi: 10.18520/cs/v115/i10/1871-1875
... What emerges from the existing literature about the trajectory of this successful scientific concept (Chin et al., 2016;Correia et al., 2018;Knitter, 2019) is the sense of some notion of a human epoch adopted by and large, infiltrating different sciences and propagating out to other cultural contexts. However, many scholars and non-specialists have used the term without referring to the debate internal to the AWG, enlarging its semantic capacity far beyond stratigraphic imprinting. ...
... Consistent with previous studies on the scientific circulation of the Anthropocene concept (Chin et al., 2016;Correia et al., 2018;Knitter, 2019), we retrieved 4.062 publications in this timespan. ...
... The literature has already reported data about the increasing number of publications referring to the Anthropocene, especially from 2010 onwards (Chin et al., 2016;Correia et al., 2018;Knitter, 2019). Along with this proliferation of research, the spaces for publishing about the Anthropocene have also increased, with the launch of dedicated journals such as Anthropocene (Chin et al., 2013), Earth's Future (Brasseur and van der Pluijm, 2013), Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene (Helmig et al., 2013) and The Anthropocene Review, as well as of the Encyclopaedia of the Anthropocene (Della Sala and Goldstein, 2017). ...
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