Abstract
This article intends to show how the discussions about historical time in the 20th century imply an assumption that has so far been unquestioned by historians: historical time is a specifically 'human' time that is defined in opposition to a 'natural' time. I argue that the debates held around the Anthropocene for the last 20 years in the Earth System Sciences allow us to question such assumption by underscoring the implications of humans on Earth's biogeochemical processes. This reconsideration brings a new perspective on historical time that could elude the dichotomic approach observed in the 20th century, posing at the same time new challenges to historical knowledge, currently open to "more than human" time scales.
Keywords:
historical time; natural time; Anthropocene