The attempt to formalize the Anthropocene as a new epoch in geologic time has run into persistent difficulties. I argue that stratigraphy concerned with anthropogenic Earth transformations should instead focus on causally explaining how human activities become materially registered in the Earth system. If we take this demand seriously, written records become central to the causal explanations of such transformations, as many causally relevant variables—such as industrial pollution, nuclear testing, dam operation, and fertilizer use—are historically organized and preserved in those records. Recognizing this methodological centrality may even push us to rethink the ontology of strata, so that they are understood as materially heterogeneous rather than essentially rock beds and ice cores. Taking these methodological and ontological implications into account, the stratigraphy of anthropogenic Earth transformations becomes continuous with history. Written records function not merely as contextual supplements to stratigraphic evidence, but as indispensable resources for reconstructing the causal processes through which anthropogenic strata are formed and understood.