Free Excel Interactive Holocene Era (HE) Conversion Calculator
The word “Holocene” means “entirely recent”. The Holocene Era (HE) encompasses the growth, history, and impacts of the human species worldwide. The HE Calendar was first proposed by scientist CESARE EMILIANI in 1993 (think 11,993 HE).
The BC/AD (or BCE/CE) calendar most commonly used today places year 1 AD at a point in time during the Roman Empire. The problem with that system is that it labels prior human accomplishment "before" or assigns negative numbers.
Emiliani's HE calendar places year 1 HE much earlier, at a time when humans were settling into agricultural communities (loosely matching the beginning of the geological Holocene Epoch). Calling any point in time "year 1" is somewhat arbitrary, so EMILIANI set 1 HE exactly 10,000 years before 1 CE or 1 AD. The math is not complex, but does get confusing. To assist, we include this free calculator.
With the calculator, you can convert between the BCE/CE or BC/AD and BHE/HE systems.
On the Excel below, the yellow box is where you enter a year. Your result is the line below that yellow box.