‘Meghalayan Age’ announced as official new chapter in Earth’s history
The past 4,200 years have been officially classified as a new chapter in Earth’s history – the Meghalayan Age.
Beginning with a global drought that had devastating consequences for ancient civilizations from Egypt to China, the new age is the most recent section of a longer period known as the Holocene Epoch, which reflects everything that has happened over the past 11,700 years.
The Meghalayan is unique because it is the first interval in Earth’s geological history that has coincided with a major cultural event, as agricultural societies struggled to recover from the shift in climate.