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Half a century later, members of the Anthropocene Working Group — a body of scientists tasked with identifying the start of a new, human-influenced geological epoch — began studying the viability of radioactive isotopes produced by nuclear testing as potential stratigraphic markers. They found plutonium-239, which tends to both endure and penetrate the darkest recesses of the ocean, to be a strong candidate.

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Yet, the 1950s was not only the decade of plutonium. It was also the decade of plastic.

The war was over, and Americans were being promised “better things for better living … through chemistry.” Only days before Hiroshima was consumed by a second sun, the president of DuPont advised his employees that Americans, drunk on peace and whose homeland was largely untouched by the war, would crave new trinkets and luxuries.

In the 1940s, DuPont had played a part in bringing about the war’s end, producing the plutonium required to make the atomic bomb at its Hanford, Wash., facility. Now that the global conflagration had ended thanks to that plutonium, DuPont turned its attention to plastics and the mass production of consumer goods. The company had begun making polyethylene at scale in 1944, which was soon hailed by Fortune as “the fastest growing plastic on the market.” By 1951, polypropylene would join its ranks as a new wonder material that would help bring about the transformation of consumer manufacturing in that decade.

In the spring of 1959, one of the most famous consumer goods in world history emerged at a New York City toy fair. Produced from polyvinyl chloride — colloquially known as PVC — the inaugural Barbie came in blonde and brunette. More than a quarter of a million dolls were sold in the first year.

Almost 65 years later, Barbie remains one of the most recognizable American brands on the planet, with approximately 100 dolls being sold every minute. Polyethylene, polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride remain the three most common variants of synthetic plastics in the world, and are among the primary “techno-fossils” that help distinguish the Anthropocene from prior epochs in Earth’s past.