Years with an era

Archaeologists, geologists, and other palaeoscientists use different systems for numbering years in the distant past. For example, the year 10,000 BCE is 11,950 Before Present or 11.95 ka. It is usually fine to store years as a plain numeric vector in R, but sometimes it helps to be explicit about which system is being used:

When you have data that mixes different systems
When you want to transform years between different systems
When you need to do arithmetic with years

The era package helps in these cases by providing classes which define the ‘era’ associated with a vector of years and functions for formatting, combining, and transforming years with different eras. This vignette is an introduction to the main features of the package.

library("era")
library("tibble")
library("dplyr")

Vectors of years with an era are represented by the yr (era_yr) class, which is constructed with yr():

yr(c(10000, 11000, 12000), "BP")
#> # BP years <yr[3]>:
#> [1] 10000 11000 12000
#> # Era: Before Present (BP): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1950

The first argument is a numeric vector of years. These can be integers or doubles.

The second argument, era, defines the numbering system associated with the years. This is an object of class era which defines the parameters of the calendar, epoch and time scale. Most of the time, you can simply specify the abbreviated label of the era, which will be looked up in the standard eras defined by eras():

yr(c(10000, 11000, 12000), "BCE")
#> # BCE years <yr[3]>:
#> [1] 10000 11000 12000
#> # Era: Before Common Era (BCE): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1
yr(c(10000, 11000, 12000), "uncal BP")
#> # uncal BP years <yr[3]>:
#> [1] 10000 11000 12000
#> # Era: uncalibrated Before Present (uncal BP): radiocarbon years (NA days), counted backwards from 1950
yr(c(10000, 11000, 12000), "ka")
#> # ka years <yr[3]>:
#> [1] 10000 11000 12000
#> # Era: kiloannum (ka): 1000 Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1950

yr_era() returns details of the era associated with a yr vector:

neolithic <- yr(11700:7500, "BP")
yr_era(neolithic)
#> <era[1]>
#> [1] Before Present (BP): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1950

yr_era(), and its pipe-friendly alias yr_set_era(), can also be used to set the era of an existing object:

chalcolithic <- 7500:6000
yr_era(chalcolithic) <- yr_era(neolithic)
yr_era(chalcolithic)
#> <era[1]>
#> [1] Before Present (BP): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1950

Note that this only updates the vector’s era attribute; it doesn’t change the data itself. To convert years from one era to another, you need to use the yr_transform() function.

yr vectors fit nicely into tables, both base data frames and tibbles:

postglacial <- tribble(
  ~period,           ~start_ka,
  "Late Holocene",   4.2,
  "Mid Holocene",    8.326,
  "Early Holocene",  11.7,
  "Younger Dryas",   12.9,
  "Bølling-Allerød", 14.7,
  "Heinrich 1",      17.0
)

postglacial |> 
  mutate(start_ka = yr(start_ka, "ka"))
#> # A tibble: 6 × 2
#>   period          start_ka
#>   <chr>               <yr>
#> 1 Late Holocene     4.2 ka
#> 2 Mid Holocene    8.326 ka
#> 3 Early Holocene   11.7 ka
#> 4 Younger Dryas    12.9 ka
#> 5 Bølling-Allerød  14.7 ka
#> 6 Heinrich 1         17 ka

Era definitions

era includes built-in definitions of many time scales and year numbering systems from contemporary and historic calendars. eras() returns the full list of built-in definitions. You can use any definition in this list by passing its abbreviated label to era() or as the era argument of yr() or any other function in the package:

era("BP")
#> <era[1]>
#> [1] Before Present (BP): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1950

yr(10000, "BP")
#> # BP years <yr[1]>:
#> [1] 10000
#> # Era: Before Present (BP): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1950

yr_transform(yr(10000, "BP"), "BCE")
#> # BCE years <yr[1]>:
#> [1] 8051
#> # Era: Before Common Era (BCE): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1

If you need to use a time scale that is not in this list, you can define it yourself with era(). Suggestions for new eras to include in the package are also welcome; please create an issue on GitHub with suggestions.

List of built-in eras

label	epoch	name	unit	scale	direction	this_year
BP	1950.0000	Before Present	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	-1	-74
cal BP	1950.0000	Before Present	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	-1	-74
BC	1.0000	Before Christ	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	-1	-2023
BCE	1.0000	Before Common Era	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	-1	-2023
AD	0.0000	Anno Domini	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	1	2024
CE	0.0000	Common Era	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	1	2024
a	1950.0000	annum	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	-1	-74
ka	1950.0000	kiloannum	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+03	-1	0
Ma	1950.0000	megaannum	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+06	-1	0
Ga	1950.0000	gigaannum	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+09	-1	0
kya	1950.0000	thousand years ago	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+03	-1	0
mya	1950.0000	million years ago	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+06	-1	0
bya	1950.0000	billion years ago	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+09	-1	0
b2k	2000.0000	years before 2000	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	-1	-24
uncal BP	1950.0000	uncalibrated Before Present	radiocarbon years (NA days)	1e+00	-1	NA
RCYBP	1950.0000	Radiocarbon Years Before Present	radiocarbon years (NA days)	1e+00	-1	NA
bp	1950.0000	Before Present (uncalibrated)	radiocarbon years (NA days)	1e+00	-1	NA
bc	1950.0000	Before Christ (uncalibrated)	radiocarbon years (NA days)	1e+00	-1	NA
bce	1950.0000	Before Common Era (uncalibrated)	radiocarbon years (NA days)	1e+00	-1	NA
ad	1950.0000	Anno Domini (uncalibrated)	radiocarbon years (NA days)	1e+00	1	NA
ce	1950.0000	Common Era (uncalibrated)	radiocarbon years (NA days)	1e+00	1	NA
AD O.S.	0.0000	Anno Domini (Old Style)	Julian years (365.25 days)	1e+00	1	2024
BC O.S.	1.0000	Before Christ (New Style)	Julian years (365.25 days)	1e+00	1	2023
H	621.5366	Hijra	Islamic lunar years (354.36708 days)	1e+00	1	1446
AH	621.5366	Anno Hegirae	Islamic lunar years (354.36708 days)	1e+00	1	1446
BH	622.5366	Before the Hijra	Islamic lunar years (354.36708 days)	1e+00	-1	-1445
SH	621.2190	Solar Hijri	Nowruz years (365.2424 days)	1e+00	1	1403
BSH	622.2190	Before Solar Hijri	Nowruz years (365.2424 days)	1e+00	-1	-1402
AM	-3760.2361	Anno Mundi	Hebrew lunisolar years (365.246822205978 days)	1e+00	1	5785
HE	-10000.0000	Holocene Era	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	1	12024
BHE	-10000.0000	Before Holocene Era	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	-1	-12024
AL	-4000.0000	Anno Lucis	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	1	6024
ADA	-8000.0000	After the Development of Agriculture	Gregorian years (365.2425 days)	1e+00	1	10024

Defining other eras

Eras are defined by the era class with the following parameters:

label: an abbreviated label that uniquely identifies the era
name: the full name of the era
epoch: the origin year from which years are counted (in Gregorian astronomical years)
unit: the unit of years counted, defined as its length in solar days
scale: the number of years represented by one unit
direction: whether years are counted forwards (1) or backwards (-1) from the epoch

These parameters are passed to era() to construct an era object. epoch, unit, scale, and direction determine the transformation between eras; label and name are purely descriptive.

You can define arbitrary eras by using the era() function directly:

era("T.A.", epoch = -9021, name = "Third Age", direction = 1)
#> <era[1]>
#> [1] Third Age (T.A.): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted forwards from -9021

As long as all the parameters are specified correctly, user-defined eras can also be used in yr_transform().

Converting between eras: `yr_transform()`

Use yr_transform() to convert between eras:

postglacial |> 
  mutate(start_ka = yr(start_ka, "ka")) |> 
  mutate(start_bp = yr_transform(start_ka, era("BP")),
         start_bce = yr_transform(start_ka, era("BCE")))
#> # A tibble: 6 × 4
#>   period          start_ka start_bp start_bce
#>   <chr>               <yr>     <yr>      <yr>
#> 1 Late Holocene     4.2 ka  4200 BP  2251 BCE
#> 2 Mid Holocene    8.326 ka  8326 BP  6377 BCE
#> 3 Early Holocene   11.7 ka 11700 BP  9751 BCE
#> 4 Younger Dryas    12.9 ka 12900 BP 10951 BCE
#> 5 Bølling-Allerød  14.7 ka 14700 BP 12751 BCE
#> 6 Heinrich 1         17 ka 17000 BP 15051 BCE

This function implements a generic algorithm for transforming years based on the era parameters described above. This means that, with a few exceptions (see invalid transformations, you can transform between any two eras that can be described by the era class.

Transformation precision

By default, era transformations are exact:

yr(500000, "BCE") |> 
  yr_transform(era("ka"))
#> # ka years <yr[1]>:
#> [1] 501.949
#> # Era: kiloannum (ka): 1000 Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1950

Often, this precision is not necessary. For example, when converting years between calendar- and present-based eras, the 74 year difference between the formal definition of “Present” and the actual present is rarely significant on a geologic time scale. Use the precision argument of yr_transform to get rounded results:

yr(10000, "BP") |> 
  yr_transform(era("BCE"), precision = 1000)
#> # BCE years <yr[1]>:
#> [1] 8000
#> # Era: Before Common Era (BCE): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1

yr(500000, "BCE") |> 
  yr_transform(era("mya"), precision = 0.1)
#> # mya years <yr[1]>:
#> [1] 0.5
#> # Era: million years ago (mya): 1000000 Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1950

Invalid transformations

Some transformations are not possible. Notably, the length of a ‘radiocarbon year’ is not well defined on a calendar time scale without calibration. Eras that use non-calendar year unit are represented with an NA and will cause an error if passed to yr_transform():

era_unit(era("uncal BP"))
#> <era_year[1]>
#> [1] radiocarbon years (NA days)
yr_transform(yr(9000, "uncal BP"), era("cal BP"))
#> Error in `yr_transform()`:
#> ! Cannot transform uncalibrated Before Present to Before Present years:
#> ✖ Calendar length of a radiocarbon year is undefined.

c14_calibrate() from the stratigraphr package implements radiocarbon calibration with yr objects.

Conversion between eras that both have an NA unit are also an error, following the R convention that NA == NA is NA. In other words, we don’t know whether two non-calendar units are the same non-calendar unit. This means that it is not possible to use yr_transform() to convert bp (radiocarbon years Before Present) to bce (radiocarbon years before the Common Era) years, for example.

Arithmetic with year vectors

The yr class is based on vctrs, ensuring type- and size-stable computations. For example, you can do arithmetic with year vectors:

a <- yr(1500, "CE")
b <- yr(2020, "CE")
b - a
#> # CE years <yr[1]>:
#> [1] 520
#> # Era: Common Era (CE): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted forwards from 0

But only when they have the same era:

c <- yr(0.5, "ka")
b - c
#> Error in `vec_cast.era_yr.era_yr()`:
#> ! Can't convert `y` <yr (ka)> to <yr (CE)>.
#> Reconcile eras with yr_transform() first.

Note that, when comparing eras, only the parameters significant to the transformation are considered (i.e. not label or name). This means that it is possible to combine year vectors with differently-named but functionally equivalent eras, for example era("BP") and era("cal BP"), although doing so will print a warning about the loss of information:

era("BP") == era("BC")
#> [1] FALSE
era("BP") == era("cal BP")
#> [1] TRUE

yr(1000, "BP") + yr(1000, "cal BP")
#> Warning: eras have different label or name parameters.
#> # BP years <yr[1]>:
#> [1] 2000
#> # Era: Before Present (BP): Gregorian years (365.2425 days), counted backwards from 1950

Years will be coerced to a plain numeric vector if a computation means their era no longer makes sense:

a * b
#> [1] 3030000

Years with an era

Years with an era

Era definitions

List of built-in eras

Defining other eras

Converting between eras: yr_transform()

Transformation precision

Invalid transformations

Arithmetic with year vectors

Converting between eras: `yr_transform()`