1772). Five different human activities are identified as potential early anthropogenic methane inputs: (1) generating human waste; (2) tending

methane-emitting (i.e. belching and flatulence) livestock; (3) animal waste; (4) burning seasonal grass biomass; and (5) irrigating rice paddies (Ruddiman and Thomson, 2001 and Ruddiman et al., 2008, p. 1292). Of these, inefficient wet rice agriculture is identified as the most plausible major source of increased anthropogenic methane input to the atmosphere. Anaerobic fermentation of organic AZD2281 cell line matter in flooded rice fields produces methane, which is released into the atmosphere through the roots and stems of rice plants (see Neue, 1993). While Ruddiman and Thomson do not employ the specific term “Anthropocene” in their discussion, they push back the onset of human impact on the earth’s atmosphere to 5000 B.P., and label the time span from 5000 up to the industrial revolution as the “early anthropogenic era” Ruddiman and Thomson (2001, Figure 3). Following its initial presentation in 2001, William Ruddiman has expanded and refined the “early anthropogenic era” hypothesis in a series of articles (Ruddiman, 2003, Ruddiman, 2004, Ruddiman, 2005a, Ruddiman, 2005b, Ruddiman, 2006, Ruddiman, 2007, Ruddiman et al., 2008 and Ruddiman and Ellis, 2009). In 2008, for example, Ruddiman and Chinese collaborators

(Ruddiman et al., 2008) offer additional support for the early anthropogenic CH4 hypothesis LY294002 by looking at another test Sclareol implication

or marker of the role of wet rice agriculture as a methane input. The number and geographical extent of archeological sites in China yielding evidence of rice farming is compiled in thousand year intervals from 10,000–4000 B.P., and a dramatic increase is documented in the number and spatial distribution of rice farming settlements after 5000 B.P. (Ruddiman et al., 2008, p. 1293). This increase in rice-based farming communities after 5000 B.P. across the region of China where irrigated rice is grown today suggests a dramatic early spread of wet rice agriculture. In a more recent and more comprehensive study of the temporal and spatial expansion of wet rice cultivation in China, Fuller et al. (2011, p. 754) propose a similar timeline for anthropogenic methane increase, concluding that: “the growth in wet rice lands should produce a logarithmic growth in methane emissions significantly increasing from 2500 to 2000 BC, but especially after that date”. Fuller et al. also make an initial effort to model the global expansion of cattle pastoralism in the same general time span (3000–1000 BC), and suggest that: “during this period the methane from livestock may have been at least as important an anthropogenic methane source as rice” (2011, p. 756).