> milk fermentation can be traced back to 6000–4000 BC in India,2 and Mediterranean populations produced and consumed cheese as early as 7000 before present (BP)
I haven't come across 'before present' (other than generically) before - what's the distinction from +2000BC (i.e. 5000BC here) such that both end up used in the same sentence, making it awkward to see the relationship between dates?
In this specific case, perhaps the dates have been taken from two different sources and the author has not made the effort to convert them to a common format.
In general, dates "before present" are used for the dates determined from carbon 14 decay, which do not have an intrinsic relationship with any calendar.
A prehistoric cheese that is 7000 years old must have been dated with carbon 14, so "before present" would be the original dating, not yet converted to the Christian calendar.
BP is commonly used for geologic and evolutionary timescales where 2000 years doesn't actually make much of a difference, but I rarely see it used for less than Holocene-spanning timelines.
Sure makes it easier to understand if your intention is to portray the age rather than the relation to specific dated historical events.
Ah that tracks, thank you. I do think it's odd in this sentence, with the two mixed (albeit we care about relating the first to history and the second to age) but clearly I'm not in the field so maybe it's just me.
(I think putting the two together makes me want to relate the latter to a time in history, to compare, even if I wouldn't in isolation, if you see what I mean.)
The document that uses it then has to then be dated.
e.g. "I warmed up dinner one minute before present" ---> said ??? minutes ago. --> is dinner still warm? who knows.
I get that "about 7,000 years ago" is still going to be "about 7,000 years" for a very long time.
Still. Seems shortsighted to communicate dates via a moving target, especially for something that's already supposed to be thinking in very long terms.
Archaeologists, you'd think, would expect their words to stick around a long, long time, why would they use a short-sighted dating mechanism?
I like BCE and ACE because it's kind of backward compatible for my brain : You find the same B and A than the previous convention and I like that the CE makes it symmetrical. Common era is also a nice name humanity can get behind whereas my brain never fully accepted Anno Dominus or whatever. If you're going to refer to Christ, do it on both sides the same for Christ's sake !
So parsable, transparent and universal acronyms for the win !
I haven't come across 'before present' (other than generically) before - what's the distinction from +2000BC (i.e. 5000BC here) such that both end up used in the same sentence, making it awkward to see the relationship between dates?