Abstract

This paper is published Open Access courtesy of the University of Oulu. This paper examines a recent call to locate the human past in deep geological time and to undo the distinction between nature and culture. It argues that the concept of the past is a heterogeneous concept that means different things in different explanatory contexts and that the call to undo or abolish the disciplinary boundaries between history as a humanistic discipline and naturalistic histories rests on a failure to acknowledge the distinction between laws and norms.