Based on the author’s fieldwork as a tour guide in the Sumidero Canyon of the Grijalva River in Chiapas, Mexico, this article examines the conceptual limits and possibilities of the term Anthropocene. It shows how the concept helps to highlight issues concerned with a conceptual division made between nature and culture, but also how the breadth of the term and the reference to an epoch can lead to difficulties for anyone wishing to take local histories into account. The article concludes that the Anthropo-cene should be understood above all as a political concept, that corresponds to a broad change in the discourse that has occurred during the last decades, from the idea of progress to an emphasis on nature, and not as a descriptive term.